Although I love spending weekends in Granada, I do take short trips outside of the city as well. Granada is perfectly located between mountains and the ocean,and many cities are close by, so there is always somewhere fun to visit on a weekend. I am on a pretty strict budget, and have spent a lot of time in the past traveling around Europe, so unlike many of the students in my program, I haven’t left Spain since September. However, I have had a fantastic semester and have had the opportunity to visit beautiful cities close by, especially those by the beach. My program took us to Sevilla, which is an amazing city with a lot of culture and breathtaking sites. We did a bike tour of the city, a great way to explore and much quicker than walking, and visited Plaza España, the royal gardens, and other famous sites. Sevilla is a very popular location for tourists, and although I thoroughly enjoyed my stay, I prefer going to smaller, less touristic cities on weekends.
Almuñécar is a beautiful and quiet little beach town, with stone beaches and water that stayed warm enough to swim up until the end of November. Having my family live in Almuñécar has made it really easy to have weekend getaways to the beach, so I end up visiting them twice a month usually. Although I am partial to Almuñécar because it’s now home.
I also visited Nerja, a more touristic and larger beach town next to Almuñécar, and had a great time there. Nerja has sandy beaches and many caves that you can explore. Both Nerja and Almuñécar are very easy to get to, there are buses that leave from Granada every 30 minutes throughout the day, and are only about 15 euros round trip. They are both easy trips to do in a day, but I recommend staying for a weekend to really get to know the towns.
