As it drive through smalled and smaller streets I got my first view of the Alhambra. Enormous castle walls rise in front of us on a green mountain. The bus climbed higher into the maze of small houses. After our most recent hotel I was getting nervous about the location we had picked. The streets were gorgeous though, really authentic. We stopped by a monestary and found our hostel a street down. Everything was cobblestoned. Every house had tiles with the name of the shop or family. Everyone on the bus knew each other. I was captivated by the world created within these streets.
Our guesthouse was run by a single family. They were all so lovely and helpful. The courtyard of their house was set up with deck chairs. The rec room had tv and comp and tea/coffee set up with board games on a chess table. We could see the castle from the balcony.
We cleaned up and set off. The Alhambra tickets we booked at the station the night before only let us in at 2pm. So we started at a panorama 2 minutes from our hostel.
We strolled back down the winding streets. To our surprise it only took a few minutes to get to the main tourist square. We ate tuna pastries for breakfast, followed by a donut.
We strolled the streets. We looked through toy shops and squares. Some of them were toy shops. I was excited when I saw a figurine of David Bowie from his role in The Labyrinth. We took the bus to the entrance of the Alhambra. Since we had pre booked tickets we skipped the queue and printed them out at the machines.
The Alhambra. Built by Moorish sultans on the hills of Granada. It has a palace and a fortress and gardens. The most famous part is the palace of the Nasrid. There is no art hung around the palace to see per se, the palace itself is the artwork. The engravings on every wall are from both the Islamic period and the later Catholic take over. It was one of the last refuges of Islamic rule in the area.
Our first stop was the Generalife - the enormous palace gardens. They were huge and largely made up of a hedge maze.
There were all sorts of arches with overhanging plants alongside decorative ponds. it would be the perfect spot for a picnic.
The garden got a bit boring after a while. However it afordded great views of the Alcazaba, the fortress walls.
Within the Generalife was a garden palace. It was a taste of what was to come later. The buildings were semi walled, leading out onto garden courts.
At that point one can´t help but notice the engraving art the spanned the width and length of the walls. It was so beautiful and done with such care. I just wanted to ran my hands along it´s many nooks and crannies. To truly take in its presence.
Past the courts were the water stairs. A set of flight of stairs at first glance. But the waist height walls on either side had aquaduct like channels with water rushing down to feed the fountains in the courts below. Josh liked this one alot.
It was almost four. Unfortunately our ticket only allowed us into the palace at 6. We still had another 2 hours to kill. We walked around some of the other areas. My mind started to wonder. I started to think about the David Bowie toy I had seen earlier. I thought about that movie and some of the riddles in it. Specifically I thought about the riddles of the two doors. One that lied and one that told the truth. I mention to Josh that I was trying to work out if the protagonist had gotten the right answer and if I could work it out.
We both concentrated on the riddle as we walked around. Then we were consumed by it. We just couldn´t work it out. The heat was getting worse. We found a coliseum like theater and sat on its cool stone for a while. We thought more about the riddle.
After that we went to the Alcozaba, the fortress. We walked up onto the guard tower. It was then that Josh, genius that he is, worked out the answer to the riddle. We were both really excited. Now my mind would be at ease. We went down the stairs and sat with some beer to celebrate.
There was still an hour to go. We sat and took in the atmosphere for a while. Finally it was our turn. Really worth the wait. Each room was more spectacular than the next.
We went through the palace quite quickly. It was incredible and all, but we had been hanging around for a long time and were both tired. So I tried to take in everything without staying too long at any one place. A great experience.
We took a park walk down to the main town square. From there we looked for a market to find food Everything was closed for the afternoon so we kept walking. Without map we walked, getting more and more lost. After we found a mini-mart we had no idea were we were. So we took a cab back up the mountain to our hostel. We ate instant noodles and relaxed for the rest of the night.
No comments:
Post a Comment