I did the Alhambra this morning. You can enter the park anytime after 8am, but you have a specific time to enter the Palacios Nazaries, which is the most stunning part of the Alhambra. Essentially, the Alhambra is the old royal city of the Moors. If you don´t know what a Moor is - look it up. There´s so much history. I spent the entire six hours of my allotted time in the Alhambra, walking around the gardens, and taking so many pictures (I had to delete some of them). I also met Aoife (said: Efa), from Ireland. She´s travelling around Spain and doing volunteer work with WOOF. Again - look it up. And since meeting her, my travel plans have changed. That´s how well we get along. So, instead of Madrid - I´m going to Sevilla. :) And then Barcelona.
But OK - the pictures! ...
This is the important place to start. If you can see the wiggle that looks like the letter W - that's the symbol for ALLAH in Arabic. And it's written over 9,000 times throughout the Palace alone! Must be an important guy....
Doorways and archways like this are commonplace for the royal palace. The insane amount of detail is astounding! And the sort of stalactite carvings that hang from a doorway or arch are typical of the Nazarine reign.
Here's some more detail for you....
Water was incredibly important, not just because it's blazing hot in southern Spain, but is the Islamic faith as well. So were the colors of gold, red, green and white. So, little spaces like these are inside every archway, for water jugs to be placed. You could not only clean your hands or feet, but praise Allah for his many gifts, including water. The act of cleansing is also important during prayer, so you see also many little alcoves used only for prayer, including a place for water to either be held in a jug, or flow from a fountain.
In the middle of the breathtaking details are sometimes latticed windows. This is so women could peek in on the meetings or going-ons of the menfolk without the men having to see them in return.
This is the throne room. I tried taking a picture of the ceiling, which is the better feature of the room. It is supposed to resemble the heavens and how humble man must feel in sight of Allah's creations. When you look up, you feel very tiny. Not because it's such a large ceiling, but because of the concave effect the ceiling has on you. The room is a perfect cube and the ceiling transforms fron cube to octagon to cube, towering upwards, with gold detailing to create the "stars" and "planets" in the skies. It's a shame I don't have a picture, but the room itself is awe-inspiring and no photo could capture that feeling.
This walkway surrounds the lion fountain, which was quite a feat in its day. Twelve lion sculptures held up a massive fountain, which worked as a clock. Twelve hours per half-day (as well as the twelve tribes of the Jews?). Water would flow from a lion's mouth each hour to signify the time. Christians came and tried to take the damn thing apart to see how it worked. Guess what hasn't worked since then? Silly conquering Christians.... They have people working on both the giant fountain and the very large royal family room (so to speak), so no pictures of the royal family. This would have been a unique thing, since depictions of man was not a regular occurence, according to Law. Allah's inscriptions were much more important, so why make a mosaic of your immediate royal family when they are insignificant in the grand scheme of things....
There was one room, which I don't have a good photo of, where an entire family was slaughtered by opposing political factions. Boabdil's entire family was wiped out and their heads were cut off and left to drain into the fountains, causing the water to turn red with blood. But Boabdil still became the next Nazarine caliph! Ultimately, Boabdil was pushed out when Christians conquered Granada in 1492 - the Alhambra was the last seat of power to fall to the Christians, after both Cordoba and Sevilla.
King Charles the Fifth then built his own (really monstrous looking) "palace" nearly on top of the Nazarine Palace, blocking what once were spectacular views. This was the time of the Renaissance, so there was a lot of really plain walls and heavy wood ceilings and doors. In comparison, it looks practically primitive.
Anyway, back to the good stuff. Even though Charlie did build icky looking buildings, there were still great views to be had and of course, the caliph's private castle and gardens.
Here's a view of the Albayzin (old Moorish quarter) and the Sacromonte (the hillsides where the Roma live). The Albayzin is where the town of Granada originated outside of the Alhambra walls. They built everything on the hillsides for defensive purposes, since the outlying plains are distinctively flat and hard to defend from a very high outcrop like the Alhambra. The typical white coloring of the houses made for somewhat sooler living spaces in the hot summers, but the green you see between the buildings is a modern occurence. Back in the day, there would have been no trees lining the narrow pathways, as water would have been preserved for more important things like feeding animals, people, crops, and of course, during prayer. The Sacromonte is mostly the steep hillsides and cave-dwellings. You can see a few of the little holes in the hills where the cave openings are. They don't like to be called gypsies, which refers to Egypt (and they clearly aren't from Egypt), so they are called Roma. The women like to shove twigs of herbs in your face as you pass them on the street. Just ignore them, even if they shout after you!
A view of the massive Renaissance Cathedral from the Alhambra... That part of Granada wasn't built until Charlie came in and decided to christianize everyone. Even all the local mosques in the Albayzin were converted to churches to placate the local public. If there's no mosques, how can you practice Islam, right? Well, that's what Charlie thought anyway.
Underneath all of the beauty are storage rooms, and apparently, this one is built in a way that you can hear whispers, even from across the giant stone walls. Aoife and I tried it out, but... it's also such a small room, that you can hear each other anyway.
These low windows were built so that one could lounge on a pillow on the floor and look out onto the landscape. What landscape you ask? Yes, well, there's Charlie again, building things in front of the original views from the Palace. So, now instead of seeing the beautiful hillsides of the Sacromonte and Albayzin, you see redwoods. Charlie's garden. It pales in comparison to the gorgeous Generalife gardens of the caliph, which Charlie kept as was.
A walkway in the gardens of the caliph. It smelled fantastic, between the roses and the myrtle.... simply heavenly!
Again, water playing a central role. Except this time, it looks a little bit more... European? Still, it was really hot and this place offered little shade. That is until you found...
...this little oasis! Palms like this are not actually that common, but it helps to have a nearby stone edifice to keep away the sun.
Nice little private getaway in the middle of the gardens. Very simple in comparison to the opulate details of the royal palace. Here, the sultan and the sultana could while away the hours of blistering heat in total bliss and privacy. It really was quite lush in its simplicity.
I had a picture of another garden leading up to the higher point of the private palace, where the remains of an ancient tree stand hanging over the garden. The tree when ripe and flowering would have had a sheltering effect, and its said that the sultana carried on secret meetings with a Christian knight under that tree. Sadly, my picture got accidentally deleted. Boo.
Another water decoration. This time in the form of a stairway that leads to a great view of Granada atop the private palace. Three sections of stairs with water running down both sides. With both the running water and the wind in the trees, it was definitely a calming effect to walk around in.
Also situated in the Alhambra is the old soldier fort, the Alcazaba. It sat on the foward most part of the hill, of course to be able to see approaching enemy forces. They had great views from the bell tower, which locals can ring on the day of something-or-other, when Granad gained independence from... somebody. But its nice to be able to know that locals are involved in the history of the city.
But here's the view from that tower...
A view of the soldier walkway from within the bell tower. And when I say bell tower, it's not like that of a church steeple. No, it's more like a large tower with a roof, where soldiers could watch, as well as stand in formation while ringing bells to warn the caliph.
Yes, yes. My four nights in Granada were well worth the heat! It's one of the more beautiful cities in Spain, even if I've only been to four cities total. Don't care. It's got its own charm, which probably dates back to the time it was founded, before even the Moors came to settle in Andalucia. I adore the tiny winding streets, the excellent wine and tapas, the lazy yet energetic atmosphere. I just don't want to ever come back in the middle of July! :)
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