Granada, Spain

Home to some of the narrowest streets yet, we arrived in Granda and found our way to the hotel, but not without getting lost….and heading up some streets that I didn’t think our car would fit through.  There was a small car following me and I actually had to stop and ask him if we were going where cars should be going!  He told me to pull in our mirrors and we’d be fine.

I think I scraped the outside of a mirror, but we made it through.  I hate these narrow streets!  This sign says it all!  Why is it only in English??

Here is a sign as we leave the hotel.  If you aren’t careful you can walk out the front door and directly into a moving car or bus.

The one thing that everybody must see in Granada is The Alhambra, a palace and fortress that dominates the views of the city.

Starting out as a small fortress built on top of Roman ruins in 889, and then renovated and rebuilt in the mid-13th century by the Moors.  After the Christians took it back in 1492, it became the Royal Court of Ferdinand and Isabella.  This is the site where Christopher Columbus received Isabella’s endorsement for his mission to sail across the “ocean blue”.

Here is a night shot that was our view from the restaurant our first night.

We read and heard a lot of warnings about tickets selling out, but there was really no line to get in, and it never really seemed all that crowded during the 6 hours we were there.

First stop was the Generalife (the “life” part is pronounced “leafy”) gardens.  That’s Kim way down there…..she had to practically push some people into the water to get them to move.  Lots of self absorbed selfie obsessed people at this place!

Wow….I found a spot in the garden with nobody standing there taking their own photo!

The Moors loved their water features.  They are everywhere.

Kim wearing her audio guide.  These were not included in the ticket price, but for 6 euros each they were well worth it.  There is very little in the way of descriptions to read throughout the Alhambra.

The best part of the Generalife to us was the Water Stairway.  Water is running along a system of gutters on both sides of the stairways, some of it going into fountains at each landing.  Very cool!

Next stop was lunch at a nice little restaurant inside the Alhambra, and then off to the Charles the V palace.  Built within the walls of the Alhambra in 1526, Charles wanted a palace that would be befitting of a Holy Roman Emperor (I’m pretty sure Robin said “Holy Roman Emperor” to Batman at least once).

There was a gate inside called the Wine Gate, which immediately drew my interest.  Considered to be one of the oldest constructions of the Alhambra, dating back to the mid 9th century.  The Alhambra website has these two possible reasons it was called the wine gate (I found it odd to have a wine gate in a muslim site):

Since 1556, the neighbours of the Alhambra left at this gate the wine that they drunk and which was not submitted to taxation. This is a possible explanation for the gate’s name, although there is another theory, according to which the name is the result of a mistake. Apparently two words got muddled up: «Bib al-hamra’», meaning Red Gate or Gate to the Alhambra, which would be the original name of the gate, and «Bib al-jamra», meaning Wine Gate. This second theory would then prove that this was the access gate to the higher Alhambra.

Your ticket comes with a specific time to visit the Nasrid Palaces, and if you miss it you have to pay for a new ticket to get in.  They are quite strict about this.  I really don’t understand why, because once you are in there are no restrictions on how long you can stay.  Whatever.  The place is beautiful, and I will only post a few photos because I think I took about 50.

There were baths modeled after Roman Thermal Baths, and they have been restored only recently.  You could not enter, but the following two photos show the view from above, and the view from inside the hot baths.

Our last stop was the Alcazaba, which is the part of the Alhambra that most people notice, the large tower that overlooks the city of Granada.  Plenty of snow on the mountains in the background.

In the middle of this picture you can see a wall with a line of people sitting on it.  This was like a crazy hippy drunk fest when we walked through it the day prior.  I don’t know if the numerous people with dreads were the result of “fashion” or just not showering for weeks on end.  Granada is definitely the Berkeley of Spain.

There was a lot of smoke hanging over the city because it seems a lot of the people on the outskirts of the city are burning refuse.

Bonus shot since Kim is tired of being featured so much!

The morning before we left Granada we took a walking tour of the area of the city we were staying in, the Albayzin.  We toured a restored Moorish house, and the owner there loved collecting various metal objects.  On the right are door knockers, and on the left are door hooks to help you in opening and closing the doors.  This guy had stacks and stacks of knockers,  so many that I think he knows more about knockers than Hugh Hefner!!

Here is Hugh Jr. himself.  See that medicine bowl and grinder behind him on the table?  I think he had at least 20 of those scattered around the house.

Off to Cordoba!  Let’s hope the streets are a little bit wider.