Juliacentralicious

Spain, Part 2: Alhambra

So Alhambra is an old fortress in Granada, which is down in the south of Spain. We got to Granada early in the morning, and soon discovered that was not early enough: there were already lines (Alhambra only lets a set number of people inside every day, and most of the specific parts have assigned entrance times). But we still got in.
So we were restrained from going into most places until our specific times, but we could do others: Palacio Carlos V, which houses a museum of artifacts from Alhambra (though no pictures allowed, which means I didn't remember a whit of it); the mosque baths, the outer wall.
Then we got into Generalife. To get there, you pass a lot of ruins-- what used to be a market place, other traces of a city. Then you get to the gardens. Here's an analogy: If Disneyworld is the happiest place on earth, then the gardens of Generalife are the Disneyworld of beauty. I've never seen so many flowers-- and they're all perfect. Just piles of snapdragons, roses. Orange trees. Fountains and bright green reflecting pools with bright orange fish. The buildings were just a taste of what we'd see in the main palace, but they're all decorated with a mix of Spanish and Moorish-- I've never seen anything so elaborate. There are birds living within the carvings of the building. And from the walls, you can see the rest of Alhambra-- bits of white stone among the trees. It's so pretty there, it's almost too much.
From there, we did Alcazaba, which was the dungeon tower. Much more sparse, of course. Not a bit of decoration, but what a view! Once you get to the top of the main tower, you can see for miles-- the view just keeps going and going.
Finally, we had to wait in line to get into the main part: Palacios Nazaries. Now that is a palace. Just skip to the pictures, I won't even try.
Unfortunately, we had to rush a little to catch our train to Madrid-- but you could stay there for years (Washinton Irving actually did stay there awhile while it was still ruins--) and still not see everything.

Pictures here.

posted by Julia @ 5:57 AM