Parque Carmen Martires

    One of the highlights of this week was visiting the BEAUTIFUL Carmen Martires park with my friends Gloria and Allison Monday afternoon. It was an adventure! We set out around 4:30pm with the intent to do some hard core exploring of Granada. The Parque Carmen Martires is completely free (yes! My new favorite Spanish phrase= ¡Por Gratis!) and located right next to the Alhambra's walls so it had lots of breathtaking views. It was a long walk (40 minutes) to get into the entrance but, the scenery made it so worthwhile. 

Here's a few pictures of all that we saw...

Beginning our walk up to the top part of the Alabacin.

 We walked up lots of stairs any many narrow streets.

 It was so fun to look down each calle and see a completely different and more amazing view. Every street corner is just beautiful here with the Sierra Nevadas.

 We finally made it to the top of the Alabacin! After exploring the perimeter of the park surrounding the Alhambra we found this adorable little (or so we thought) park and palace with a giant gated entrance. It was seriously SO cute, so we just had to enter. After all, it was free!! 

 We even saw a few peacocks inside the palace's walls. :)

 So much to explore! The palace just kept going & going.

Just a few of the amazing views we saw inside the palace.

:) 

 This park has definitely been one of the best kept secrets in Granada. 

We were so excited to have discovered it!

After touring the palace we were delighted to find several trails in the back of the park. So of course we continued exploring! Keep in mind that we had NO idea what time it was...

It's like we had found the Secret Garden. :) 

  Any time I see switch backs like these, I HAVE to follow...

And the view at the top was simply breathtaking!

 All the climbing was definitely worth it, so many beautiful vistas. :)

 We found a gorgeous panoramic view of the entire city of Granada along with 

the Sierra Nevadas and the Alhambra. 

A.m.a.z.i.n.g.

 So there we were on the top of the world, enjoying all the beautiful scenery when it occurred to me that we had better head back down before the park closes. Hahahaha, we wouldn't want to get locked in here tonight! Truer words were never spoken...

    So we rushed back down the hill, walked through the gardens and the palace to the entrance of the gate. Giant gate, completely locked. There we were right in front of the locked gate, with the park's closing hours that clearly read 6pm at 6:13pm. So being the level headed gal that I am... I panicked!  What would we do?! 

     We soon got the attention of some incredibly sweet Spanish ladies outside the gate and asked them if there was another way out. (Now picture this, 3 very American looking chicas behind 2 huge gate doors attempting to speak Spanish to the natives...) They reassured us that there was another gate just down the path a little ways. We thanked them profusely and then ran to find the other gate. Yep, we found the gate alright. Again, completely locked. And of course, the sun had set & it was getting dark. Can you say spooky?! 

    We attempted to ask another Spaniard for advice and he directed us to the same gate as before. After explaining to him that we had just tried that gate & it was locked he just looked at us, said plainly, "well, I guess you're stuck then!" and walked away. Not the most comforting thing to hear! 

   Then we walked back to the first gate, hoping to find someone else to help us out & praying we wouldn't have to sleep in Parque Carmen Martires that night... The park was definitely a LOT less magical at this point! Thankfully, we spotted a security guard outside the gate walls & after getting his attention he told us plainly to call 092- he even told us the numbers in English! ( I guess it was obvious we aren't from around here...) So I called the number, thinking it was the gatekeepers number but no, it was the police department! The police were very understanding and promised to send a car over right away to let us out. That officially makes my first police call! (I think I'd prefer doing it in English...) Oh, and we also meet 2 Korean girls at the gate that also got locked inside too. They spoke broken English and no Spanish so just imagine me trying to translate to these girls while calling the police. Crazy.Thankfully, before long the policemen arrived and set us all free! 

 Our final picture before realizing we were trapped...

By the way, Granada police are very friendly! You should have seen the look on their faces when they found us. They  just smiled and asked us where we were from... ;) 

We decided to celebrate with some churros & chocolate. Adventures like this definitely call for chocolate. :) What a night!