Thursday, October 4, 2018

Magical and Mysterious - The Alhambra

To finish up on my post of Granada, Spain and the visit to Alhambra and the Nasrid Palace, as our tickets for the palace weren't until 6:30 pm, we took a relaxing morning at the hotel. We had breakfast and then packed as we would be leaving for Brussels, Belgium through Madrid very early the next morning.

We walked up to the old historic center of town and had tapas and wine for lunch, then caught a bus up to the Alhambra.  Our visit started with the gardens, in an area called the "Generalife".






The word used for the area "Generalife" comes from the Muslim Jennar al Arifor or Garden of the Architect. As you can see it was an overcast day when we started and it did start to rain just after we arrived. The gardens were lovely all the same.









After touring the gardens and the villa, we headed to the Alcazaba or the citadel. By now the rain had stopped and it was quite hot and somewhat humid.  At the citadel, you have to climb up a tight winding staircase to get to the top of the fortress.  I'm not sure what was worse, going up or coming down.

There is also a large building, the Palace of Charles V,  that has a rotunda inside and a large chapel on site to explore.


Heading into the fortress, Alcazaba


Not at the top yet

At the top

Looking back down over the Alcazaba

Palace of Charles V


Inside the palace

Chapel inside the Alhambra

After we finished touring the grounds, we still had some time to go before the timed entrance to the Nasrid Palace.  We found a small hotel, called the American Hotel, that also had a very small restaurant and had some dinner. The restaurant was at the front of the hotel and so the waiter didn't have to go down the hall past the reception desk, there was a small hatch in the wall of the dining room connected to the kitchen. He just passed the orders to the kitchen that way and they would ring a bell when there was an order ready.

After eating we walked back the palace entrance area and waited for our time to enter.  The Nasrid palaces only have limited tickets available and some people at my workshop were disappointed not to be able to get tickets; they still were able to get entrance tickets to see all of the other areas.  We occupied ourselves while waiting watching the cats.




The palace was pretty amazing.  The tile work and the carved stone work must have taken a huge amount of  time and labour.








You are asked not to touch anything, I put my had on a plain column and was even asked to remove my hand from that.  They did have replicas of stone work and tile work that you could touch.

Yes, we could sit in the chair.

 The Court of the Lions (Patio de los Leones) and fountain was spectacular. It was too bad that we couldn't get closer or that the fountain had to be roped off. The fountain is a replica now, all of the original lion carvings are in museums. We were only allowed around the outside of the patio under all the arched areas.





Spectacular roof 



View of Granada
Some Christian paintings on the ceiling


Palace baths


Everywhere you looked there was something to see, it was really impossible to take it all in.  I can hardly imagine what it would have been like to have been someone of wealth who had lived there during the reign of the Nasrid dynasty.

After leaving the inside of palace, there are more royal garden areas to walk though with fountains, waterfalls and ponds.

It was a long day but certainly one that was well worth it and that I will remember for quite some time. The pictures just don't do it justice.  If you get a chance, you should visit.





3 comments:

  1. Wow! The gardens are absolutely stunning!

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  2. That was an amazing trip and some awesome photos. Thank you so much for your support for Lightning - it means a lot to us.

    Woos - Lightning, Misty, and Timber

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