Alhambra

Since there are no furnishings ...

... in the Alhambra, all the ...

Another early morning -- at 6 AM it is still dark as night out and there are almost no vehicles on the roads. We were in a hurry to get to Granada to pick up our tickets for an 8:30 entrance into the Alhambra.  Until a few days ago, I had never heard of this place.  Lonely Planet in 2011 said it is the top spot to visit. So Jon ordered tickets online and we headed back north.  It was frosty and clear and Benjamin with his thin Israeli blood was freezing while we stood in line waiting to be among the first.

... views are up  ...

... until you get outside.

The Alhambra is a fortress, a royal palace, part of a complex with a long history. Last year we went to the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, it also had housing for the harem and a throne room, etc. This building is different because it has been painstakingly renovated with room after room of intricate decorative plaster, inlaid wood ceilings, tile floors and walls.  The trouble is, there were almost no signs telling us what we were seeing -- except for the explanations about the renovation process.  Obviously the people who have spent so much time recreating this Moorish/Christian building are very interested in that aspect, but we would have liked to have some context.  Again, I really missed having a movie to explain everything.  That is so normal in the US, the movie, a good narrative makes all the difference.  There were grand hallways and fountains and sculptures. I like to be able to imagine the people who lived here.  The Topkapi Palace did a much better job.  There were other grand buildings in the complex -- Charles V, who had royal palaces all over Europe (Holy Roman Emperor) wanted a more comfortable and modern place to live here so they started building a big round Renaissance structure with a big open courtyard in the middle, Greco-Roman columns all around the perimeter.  It took them over 400 years to finish it.  We wonder why they thought it was important to finish it, since those royal families were long gone.  There were some great views of Granada and the Sierra Nevada mountains from on top of the towers of the military fort.

From a parapet, looking back at the palace.

Looking up into the Sierra Nevadas.

Looking out over Granada.

Running water where handrails
would be.

View of palace complex from
some of the newer gardens.

Hana, trying to join a work crew, but she forgot her green and blue jacket.

We went into the center of the city, braving the traffic, driving on forbidden roads by mistake but leaving quickly enough, eventually found a parking garage and set off on foot to find lunch and sightseeing.  Another sunny, warm day by then so we sat outside in a touristy block of restaurants, watching the crowds of school children go by.  Lunch, then wandering, then some gelato, then back to the car. Benjamin said that Granada felt mostly like a European city but he couldn't get a feeling for its unique character. We probably didn't try hard enough.

The view of the mountains and valleys was much clearer this time -- snow on the peaks and rugged, craggy, shadowy ridges. 

We stopped at a big supermarket in Nerja where many of the signs were in English as well as Spanish because this is a big destination for British tourists.  They were in evidence.  Apparently many have timeshares here and spend the winter months in the sunny south.   We bought nice vegetables and other supplies and headed back up the valley to our whitewashed village in the hills.  

Benjamin got two new hats on this trip, a total success.

Naps, knitting, eventually we decided we didn't want to go out for dinner so Jon cut up some vegetables and made pasta and used lots of olive oil and salt (we finally noticed they don't really eat garlic here).  I finished making Benjamin's hat and he put it right on and said it was great.  Whew -- the last thing I made him was not a success, with its too long sleeves and its stretched out body.  This hat uses the same pattern that Nell used for Becca: it has a hole at the top for a ponytail to stick out.  Nell sent me the pattern less than an hour before we left on this trip, and I grabbed some yarn from my stash and started knitting at the airport.   While Jon and Benjamin reviewed the rules and strategy of backgammon (using a board that B. drew on some paper and all the coins they could scrounge to use as checkers), I made some fingerless gloves, to Benjamin's specifications: narrow wrist, wider at the palms, narrow again at the top.  The second one was better than the first.  So now he has a wool hat and gloves to wear in Austria this weekend.  They played backgammon and talked about mathematical probabilities before each move.  

Jon gave Benjamin his leather hat, saying that now that he has found one he likes he will be able to find another.  

We have not been able to post any pictures because we have been using Benjamin's phone as a hot spot (leaving us tomorrow) and it just isn't quite strong enough to do that task.