Hi all! Well we are approaching Christmas 2025 at full speed right now, but there is still time to get a blog or two in for you so today I am continuing the Central America part of my ‘round the world’ adventure in Nicaragua.

Last time I wrote about Nicaragua I wrote about the city of Leon. Today’s subject city is another city named from the Spanish city of the same name in Granada. Granada is a city on Lake Cocibolca. It is just over 40 kilometres south-east of the capital Managua, and around 140km from Leon where we were before heading to Granada.

Graham and I were in town in Leon and we stopped by the Bigfoot Hostel which runs loads of tours and will take you up volcanoes. They are obviously also a hostel and they do shuttles to other places in Nicaragua including the airport at Managua, Managua itself and Granada. It was a mini-van, it was okay and well air conditioned and was the simplest way to get to Granada. They also offered pick up and drop off at our accommodation which was great and super convenient.

We stayed in an apartment at the Boutique Hotel Secret Garden, they have a couple and it worked out to be excellent value and the pool was much appreciated too. We went out for a couple of meals in town as well and thought the eating wasn’t too bad in Granada, one place we went was a steak restaurant that really hit the spot.

Nearby you have the volcano Mombacho with loads of activities including Zip Lining, and in a slightly different direction the Laguna de Apoyo which is a lake in a crater which is basically a beach sort of place where people relax in the sun and go swimming. And those were the two day trips we did from Granada.

However, we did have a little time to explore the town. And we mostly just wandered it’s attractive and colourful streets to be honest and checked out a couple of things. The first of which was the Chocolate Museum.

Chocolate Museums have sprung up in a few Latin American countries and I believe this one is affiliated with the ones in Cusco in Peru and Mexico City. I think there are one or two others as well. The one in Cusco had a lot more in terms of being a museum, however we decided to undertake a chocolate making class that was a bit of fun which made this one more worthwhile.

This one I believe is attached to a hostal or guesthouse of sorts, so offers something a bit different. Charming building too. The lesson was great – it was just Graham and myself and the teacher. We ground cacao, mixed it up and turned it into a hot chocolate. We also set some pre-prepared chocolate and had it set, coming back in a few hours to get our finished chocolate. There was a fair bit of tasting too. It’s a cool experience!

The Plaza de la Catedral is naturally a square with a cathedral on one side. It’s an attractive centre of town and nice to spend a little time in, however there are a number of touts that are looking for foreigners as well and they came up to us regularly to try and get us to book tours with them. We did want a couple of day trip tours, but in the end we booked through our hotel which was the best option I think. Around this area also you will find loads of restaurants, not that we ate in on the side of the square but most of the places we ate were within a few hundred metres of it. The impressive Catedral Inmaculada Concepion de Mary gives the square its name and there is something old worldly about this church, although it was not open at the times we were there to visitors.

Not too far from the square is the Convento de San Francisco, which is run as a bit of a museum today and is worth popping in not so much for the building or the displays, but out the back you do see some great views of the local mountains and rooftops as well. It was founded in 1529 and has a history of being destroyed and rebuilt. I think the current buildings were built in the second half of the 1800s. Some great courtyards. Over the road there was a restaurant I spent some time chilling in over a few drinks, but it was pretty touristy and the prices really reflected that.

One restaurant that we went to that we were super happy with, and it wasn’t cheap but again, not Europe prices either, not by a long shot, was El Zaguan. This place specialised in doing meat which makes me happy and I just remember it being quite superb. So if you are looking for a good meal, head to El Zaguan. You will need to get to Granada first. And if you’re in Spain, it’s the wrong Granada.

Anyways, thanks kindly for reading today. We are moving into December here, so I’m going to write about the day visit to Mombacho Volcano and then resume it all next year, but there will be a little content through until just before Christmas then a nice long blogging and indeed vlogging (more importantly EDITING) break for me! Take care wherever you may be in this big wide world of ours – May the Journey Never End!