Spain! THE ALHAMBRA.

DAY 9: THE ALHAMBRA.

An exchange which I remembered (from the BBC Miniseries version of the book "North & South" by Elisabeth Gaskell, slightly later-than-Austen era): 

• "Oh! London and the Alhambra are the two places I long to see!" 
• "London and the Alhambra!"
• "Yes! ever since I read the Tales of the Alhambra. Don't you know them?"

I like the idea that some mid-to-late 1800s well-bred woman somehow fixated on both London and the far-away place which I myself got to visit.  I have not, myself, yet read "Tales of the Alhambra" (here's a free ebook version, for the curious). They were, as I think C. said, responsible for renewed interest in the Alhambra (renovation and preservation); much like our rundown urban wastelands of today which are gentrified by the artists moving in and making people aware that the place is nice, Washington Irving went and set up his typewriter in the Alhambra like he owned the place, and made the rest of the world think it was totally awesome and want to rush in and visit as well. 

USEFUL FACT: When in Spain -- you can often buy tickets to the various attractions of Spain from (decently well-marked) ATMs. That is, you go to said ATM, and one of the menu options is "buy tickets", somewhere above and/or to the side of "withdraw money" or such. 

This is how we bought our tickets for the Alhambra, including our ticket to the Nasrid Palace, which is really the crown gem of the place (which we did not realize at the time, or at least, I didn't realize). 

My only notes at the time about the Alhambra were as follows: 

"Totally awesome. Do it. We spent about 6 hours there, ~3.5 of which were in the Nasrid Palace, which was, in my opinion, the reason for going. "

Something I didn't understand about the Alhambra itself until looking at the thing is that it is a complex of palaces/fortresses/buildings, not one building.

Here's its timeline, via the wikipedia page and a thing it cites:

1. First, fortress-y part built sometime, don't know when. 
2. 889 first written stuff we have about it, saying that Sawwar ben Hamdun fled to the fortress and then repaired it. 
3. Not much later (sometime 9th C), the Alhambra castle was added.
4. Various smaller things added and constructed. Local royal types decided to live there. 
5. 1333-1391 two sultans [Yusuf I (1333-1353) and Mohammed V (1353-1391) ] did a lot of construction, which is most of the stuff people like to look at now (I believe this must then be the 'Nasrid Dynasty' period).
6. 1492 Reconquista 
7. 1527 Charles V liked the Alhambra so much that he wanted to build his own palace inside the complex, after living in some of the renovated rooms of the previously constructed parts. 
8. Disrepair. 
9. 19th century "rediscovered" by European scholars and travelers.
10. Restorations, then tourism. 

Also, just learned where the name comes from: its reddish walls (in Arabic, («qa'lat al-Hamra'» means Red Castle). [from here]

To get to the Alhambra, I recommend taking the bus. Totally work the 1,20 to get from the bottom of the hill to the entrance way. 

First, to give some perspective, here's a view of the St. Nicholas lookout (which I showed pictures of the Alhambra taken from), from the Alhambra: 

the viewpoint being where all the people are, by the cross and the beige Church

The general view of the area from the Alhambra is great. Makes sense, being a palace and fortress complex, that you'd want to be able to see everything. 

and the Sierra Nevadas:

The first piece we walked into is currently a Hotel(Parador de Granada). It was previously a franciscan monastery, and before that, another mini-palace area of the Alhambra. It's got a small courtyard that one can go nose around which is where Isabella had asked to be buried. Her son, Charles V, decided he didn't agree with her choice of burial place and had her and his father moved somewhere else.  There was something in the audio thing about how even though they were moved from the cool room/nook where they were buried, the monks still kept up the room (this is the tripadvisor pic of the courtyard you could walk in, looking straight at the area where they'd been buried).

It had really nice paths outside with pretty designs: 

I'm a sucker for mosaics, I guess. 

While killing time walking around, we did a round of Charles V's palace. It houses a museum or two, as well as a nice little museum shop, which includes copies of "Tales of the Alhambra", in several languages. It had a circular courtyard, which I would not have guessed from the outside: 

"pudding stone" columns of Charles V's palace

So, because having my wallet in another city was not enough, my camera decided to edge towards dying. Keep in mind, I bought this last August. Bleah. Anyway, it was freaking out and shutting itself down without retracting the lens, just as we entered the Nasrid Palace. 

Despite that, I managed to eke out a fair amount of pictures. 

Entering, you enter a part of the palace which faces the thing Charles V built. In keeping with this, these rooms are part of what had been renovated by him. He had added some subtle elements to the already-extant stuff, e.g.:

see the bird thing? that's part of the Spain insignia/coat of arms

Also, the upper part of this picture is the railing (which is about all that remains) to a "choir loft" Charles V had had installed when he'd used this room as a chapel:

Light streaming through the very-decorated windows of one of the side-rooms of this first chapel-y area:

This is a nice example of the crazy mix of stuff there: the "honeycombed" ceiling, with at least 3 different patterns in (well, it looks like it was carved into) the stucco, and then closer to the floor are two kinds of tile. 

Aroune the place were tucked various (modern) chairs, which one could pause and sit on: 

Here is a convergence of crazy ceilings:

A sign claiming that Washington Irving wrote his tales in that room; the audio guide says that this is false, that Irving wrote in the "fruit room", which is usually closed to visitors. 

CEILINGS: 

A crazy wood ceiling:

Another cool ceiling: 

I think this ceiling was my favorite. There are several 'rings' of stars, each symbolizing some ring of Islamic heaven: 

This was cool, too; the ceiling that Charles V had added, much lower than the actual ceiling, with a chunk missing:

This might be the best pic I have of one of the 'honeycombed' ceilings: 

Crazy stucco work:

I think this gives you a good feel for how intricate these were:

More crazy stucco work: 

Stucco *and* tile, for the discerning looker: 

I really enjoyed stuff like this, with a mix of geometry and writing in the stucco, plus more tile: 

Water  (and fountains) is a recurrent theme. It makes all the various pilars and whatnot look taller, but was also important since all the water had to be brought in from elsewhere. This involved some pretty sophisticated acqueducts and water towers, one of which was removed to extend the monastery thing. Despite the removal, the original (well, renovated a bit, I imagine) water works still supply the water for all the pools and stuff. 

The audioguide explained that (somehow) they'd determined that water jugs were stored in these niches: 

Famous 'lion' fountain. They're actually pretty tiny. I also don't think they look like lions.

[POSTCARD SHOT:] This is totally on one of the postcards in the giftshop. Also, something about the colors and shapes makes me think of video game backgrounds, like myst or such:

Pretty sure this is Generalife instead of the Nasrid Palace 

After all of that, and wrestling with my camera, I was pretty burnt out, so there weren't much non-Nasrid Palace pictures. We were there about 6 hours in total; my feet were killing me afterwards.

After the Alhambra, we found dinner at a very local-feeling "cafeteria" which had some really awesome desserts and kind of "meh" everything else. I suggested getting some of the empanadas for breakfast, which turned out to be tuna and tomato flavored. We opted to walk back up the hill to our lodgings, and maybe 1/3 or 1/2 of the way there, it turned from drizzle into pouring rain, with the roads turned into streams. 

I was glad for all the stony/bumpy pavement, which made it a bit easier to navigate.  While walking up a particularly steep section of hill in especially torrential rain, we were passed by a group of people on a segway tour -- in the dark, in the pouring rain, with helmets and reflective vests on.  We learned the next day that that rain had been record-breaking (for March, in Granada) rain. 

Next time: Córdoba! 
(then Madrid, then...I went home :) ). 

Spain! Granada, besides the Alhambra.

Day 8, Continued: Málaga to Granada

Turns out that bus travel in Spain is wayyyy cheaper than train travel.  The (2 hr) bus to Granada ran us about 10 euros, whereas my (high speed) train ticket (later on) was closer to 100 euros.

view out the window of the bus from Málaga to Granada

So, we took the 2 hr bus to Granada, then a cab up the windy and labyrinthian streets and hills to our hotel (Carmen Aljibe del Albayzin) in the Albayzin district.   The Albayzin district is "old Granada", sprawling around and up the hills of the city and very narrow and confusing ways, probably on purpose originally, to foil attacks.  It's hugged on one side by a hill with the city wall remnants and a cloister; on the other side, by a mountain range, the Sierra Nevadas.

Our hotel was a very fancy place, full of pretty tile. The courtyard had a fountain and there was also a rooftop terrace, with a nice view of the Alhambra.

I like the attention to detail in the decoration. Even the ceiling is decorated.:

Entry way to our hotel, looking back at the front door

Something I noticed after the Alhambra that the tile in our hotel here on the floor of the courtyard is ( a good approximation to) in a part of the Alhambra. 

courtyard of the hotel; I feel like this is the clear "should go in a brochure" shot. 

A better picture of part of the decor by the front door: 

in the entryway to 

The hotel was very nice to look at, and furnishings-wise. The roof-top terrace was nice to go out on while it was sunny. I think it was 16-18C that first day. 

On the roof:

the rooftop terrace of our hotel

view of the rooftop terrace and behind, up to the city wall

On the terrace was a prime example of the cute kind of pottery we saw all over. White with aqua and darker blue floral designs painted atop: 

nice pottery with a succulent inside

None of us knew what the Alhambra was supposed to look like from the outside. Based on the map, we figured out where it was.

Our first view of the Alhambra, from the roof-top terrace:

Taking advantage of the sunny day, we went on a walk, heading in a round-about way(*) towards "little Morrocco", via the viewpoint in front of the church of St. Nicholas, which is supposed to be the best view of the Alhambra in the city.

(* I think there is no other way to walk around the Albayzin district outside of round-about, based on the general windy-ness of the streets)

Getting to the St. Nicholas lookout, my first non-hotel-roof view of the Alhambra (complete with weird white wall I was standing by):

the mountains in back are the Sierra Nevadas

When it was clear that the actual proper look-out area was actually sort of behind, to the right, and up 2 meters, I went up there and took a few pictures:

postcard-esque shot of the Alhambra, #1

postcard-esque shot of the Alhambra, #2

Continuing on our walk vaguely dinner-wards, we saw a lot of beautiful little nooks and crannies of Granada. The base color of everything was white, with accents given by painted brick, or doors, or the stones on the ground set in concrete into pretty patterns:

I did say that there would be a lot of pictures of the ground

Here's the narrow street around the corner from St. Nicholas' square:

I overheard a guy talking, saying that "Carmen" is the (local) word for "house", e.g.:

(or, the name of our hotel, Carmen Aljibe del Albayzin). 


Despite all the quaint-ness, things were clearly not all calm in paradise. Many walled houses and buildings had glass shards stuck to the tops of the walls to discourage people from climbing over. I didn't really notice this actively until we came across one where instead of just jagged shards, they had used almost-entire bottles:

Gate with jagged broken glass bottles atop

Little Morocco had a lot of restaurants with some variety, but all in the same vein, and what seemed like 20 little stores that all sold exactly the same clothing (that sort of hippy/caravan stuff that's actually made in Nepal) and shoes and little tea pots.


This picture is of the main street of Little Morocco. The two guys making some elaborate hand-shake were totally there when we walked by. TheY run shops on opposite sides of the street:

We stopped at a fun restaurant, which had some seriously clashing patterns:

and, in addition to our food, had "house lemonade", which was really limeade, with mint. It was delicious.

nifty teapots and our nice lemonades

After dinner, there was some more walking and looking around. 

I noticed that several bars/restaurants had white porcelain/ceramic signs with blue designs and lettering, advertising both that they sold cola products, and the name of the establishment: 

There was, in general, a fair amount of tile work strew about, decorating various things. Even the doorjams and also underneath balconies (i.e. on the underside): 

decorated doorjam

My favorite form of house-decoration in Granada was, in addition to the lovely tile on, around and underneath the balconies, the plates/bowls. I don't know if they were hung on hooks, or if they were somehow plastered to the buildings themselves. They were very lovely, usually blue or green patterns: 

Here's wikipedia's better (during the day, as well) picture of the same house:

Also, while we were in Granada, there seemed to be some kind of group-costumed scavenger hunt going on. I got a picture of the astronauts as they ran by. There were also babies, a shot-gun wedding, and various other things I couldn't quite figure out: 

the other side of the sign says "the astronauts"

Day 9, specifically the part which was the rest of  non-Alhambra Granada: 

Granada, to me, is divided up into "the Alhambra" and "everything else".  Given that, I'll put the rest of our wanderings which were not specifically Alhambra-related here, since there are a metric tonne of pictures of the Alhambra to ramble on about. 

The part of Granada that the Alhambra is accessible from is a bit more colorful than the district we were staying in: 

My best guess for this is that it's a statue of Isabella meeting with Chris Columbus. I found the metal-as-fabric draping down over the rest of the monument to be quite impressive: 

There were, around the corner, a row of awesome tetris-y lamps: