TravelCD

Walking Tapas Tour in Granada’s Foodie Hotspots.

Welcome to my in-depth tour review!

Cost:

Now this one was quite expensive, but considering we were getting a lot of food including drinks, as well as plenty of knowledge from our tour guide about the dishes, I personally think it is worth the cost, however completely understandable if you just like to go and discover fantastic tapas places for yourself. It was 65 euros, I also gave the tour guide an extra ten euros because she was fantastic, but there was no pressure to do so. 

The Tour:

This was the first tour I went on during my stay in Granada. I was very nervous, I have to say, but during the tour, my tour guide and the other people on the tour put me at ease. I suppose I was mainly focused on the food when I booked up this tour, and I didn’t think about the fact I’d be eating with strangers who I’d get to know over the course of the three-hour and a half tour. They were all mostly in couples, pairs from Canada and the US. 

I’m not that talkative, so I mostly listened to everyone else’s stories and I realised once again at how much I enjoy listening to everyone’s life experiences, it reminded me of my two previous tours of Spain, last year and five years ago. There was a couple who’d moved out here to visit their daughter who was living in Spain, there was a couple who’d left their kids back home and often talked about how worried they were about them, since it was their first time leaving by themselves. 

There was even a funny moment when we were about to try out different types of olive oil, one of the guys from Canada, couldn’t wait for the specific olive oil, that we’d be trying to arrive, and he used what he thought was olive oil for our tapas, to give him credit, some of it was olive oil however some of it was not, and he accidentally tipped vinegar into his patch of olive oil that was for the tapas! But he still said he liked the taste, ha! I think the tour guide thought it served him right since he couldn’t wait patiently.

I couldn’t really taste much difference between the olive oil we tried, but they all still tasted very nice. Not only that, but I think the food I enjoyed the most was the tapas we had, that had sugar cane honey on them, I loved the honey so much that I brought some a couple of days after the tour and the tour guide even showed us where to buy it! I also really enjoyed the ox tail croquettes, the first tapas we had. That’s not to say I disliked everything else, they were just mt favourites. We had around seven different plates of tapas, and we went to three different restaurants, there was a lot of wine we could try as well. I don’t like wine in general, but I had some anyway, so unfortunately you’re not going to get what is the best wine from me because I didn’t like any of them, obviously that’s not me saying they’re bad, if you like wine, then you’ll likely enjoy them, everyone else in our tour did. 

So overall, I loved the tapas, the tour guide was very knowledgeable and friendly, she fit in really well with the group dynamic, and the group was great to listen too and get to know as well.

Where I Found The Tour:

This tour was once again found on my good friend, the Get Your Guide app. The app was fantastic, and I recommend it to anyone. There were plenty of tours available, and I almost joined another tapas tour with Get Your Guide, but I decided I’d already spent too much money by that point, ha! But yes, it is so easy to use and if you have WhatsApp, it’s easy for the tour to get in contact with you and let you know extra information or let you know if you need to rebook, which they will do for you! Check it out here! And I’m not sponsored or anything, recommending them, I’ve just had such a fantastic time with them! Just click this link to have a look at their website! 

The Tour Guide: 

The tour guide was amazing at her job and communicated knowledge about the surrounding area and the food we were eating really well, despite having a thick accent. I could also tell that you, she was really proud of her now home and loved showing off to us. I say now home because she was actually originally from Russia and clearly was happy to be out of the country, she had moved to Spain many years ago. Not only that, but I also had an interesting conversation with her about learning Spanish, since she had become fluent, while I am just beginning, and she understood the struggle but also the delight of learning other languages. 

I also remember a funny moment with her when she was telling us the secret of the Spanish, looking younger for their age, to be very honest, I hadn’t really noticed, but it was fun to think about, since she also recommended adding olive oil and wine in small amounts every day. She also recommended Sunflower Oil to cook and this is where I learnt that Canadians and American’s don’t usually use Sunflower Oil for cooking (Or at the very least, the people on my tour didn’t) it’s popular in Spain, and in the UK (I assume other European countries too) I do wonder what oil they use instead? I didn’t ask, I probably should have, I’m curious now!

Location: 

Now this was a little more difficult to join the tour, I think it was because the tour guide did not have something colourful with her, to identify her. So when I got to the location, which was at the kiosk at Teatro Isabel La Catholica, Casino sidewalk (close to Puerta Real), I just sat on a bench for ages, glancing at everyone around me, trying to guess who was the tour guide and make sure I didn’t go up to any strangers. 

That makes me have a funny thought, like what if I had gone up to some strangers, asking if they were my tapas tour guide and instead of saying no, they’d said yes, and I’d go off on my own fake tour without even knowing it, ha. 

Luckily, I did in fact pick the right person to ask, once I noticed she had a register with her, which she used to check that everyone who was meant to be on the tour was here. 

What To Bring:

I just brought some bottled water along with me, though you don’t need too, since you can just ask for tap water while you’re there, but it was quite nice just to have a quick drink, since I wasn’t having much of the wine and while I was waiting for the food to come out and chatting to everyone. We did walk quite a while, but it is a walking tapas tour after all, so I recommend comfortable shoes as well, but there isn’t any walking up hills or anything like that. 

My Final Thoughts:

I really enjoyed this tour! I think out of the tours I did, this was one of my favourites and I don’t think it is just to do with the food either but because of the wonderful group I was with. So I feel like this tour can be very situational as whether you have a good time or not, won’t just depend on the food and the tour guide, and the restaurant service, but will depend on the group you are with. 

If you’re not with a chatty or a friendly group, then you’ll just be sat in silence for a while and have to rely on the tour guide to keep things going, but I don’t think that’s fair on them, and it’ll probably be not much fun and a bit awkward, so I’m very happy my group was the opposite of that! 

Recommend

Yes, I definitely recommend this tour! 

(The last two pictures of food are not from my tapas tour but they are still from my trip to Granada and they were delicious! All other pictures are from the tapas tour<3)