Alhambra & Sierra Nevadas (Granada 3)

         We’re back in Madrid now, ready to catch out plane back to the U.S. tomorrow. I’ll do a brief recap of the past two days:

         Two days ago we went up for an early morning tour of Alhambra (for Spain: based on the time the sun rises and sets, Spain should be in a time zone that’s an hour earlier, so 8:30am is really more like 7:30am). I’ll just direct you to Wikipedia for the details on Alhambra because there’s too much interesting history to recount here. We were able to walk up the hill to Alhambra in about 20 minutes and waited a short while to be part of the first wave of visitors allowed into the first palace at 8:30am. Over the next 3.5 hours, we wandered through an incredible complex of ornately decorated palaces and beautiful gardens, some of which you can see below.

         We were tired from the morning, so walked back into Granada and had churros and chocolate at Café Futbol, an old institution there. After a long nap and a delicious home-cooked Filipino meal at their apartment, we went over to the house of our friend’s sister, on the edge of town and overlooking the Sierra Nevada mountains. We hung out there to watch the World Cup final and to have another home-cooked dinner (which we didn’t start eating until 10:40pm).

         The next day, we had a long, leisurely morning, and then went off for a drive and a picnic in the Sierra Nevada mountains, winding through some small towns and eventually stopping to eat just past Capileira.

         This morning, we took a 4.5 hour train ride back up to Madrid. After lunch and a siesta, we went back to the Prado, this time managing to get in for the last bit of the day. Below are some pictures from the past few days.

         This concludes our blog posts for the foreseeable future. 

more graffiti as we began our walk up to Alhambra

The first gate we entered: note that the Christians put a Virgin Mary in that little alcove above the door.

View of the military part of Alhambra with Albayzin in the background

The palaces were full of ornate designs

water was central to the whole complex

some of the incredible details on all the walls

all of the materials were highly decorated

Apparently some 6,000 people go through Alhambra each day. We were lucky to go early (and on a Sunday) so it actually wasn't so bad.

Another famous courtyard from one of the palaces

all the views looked out over the rest of Granada

an interior garden

After the palaces, we walked through a huge complex of gardens

Some of these were actually vegetable gardens, too

We followed the gardens over to the summer palace

When the Christians conquered Granada they left most of Alhambra but tore down one building to make way for this giant palace

Inside was this huge atrium

Another view of Albayzin, this time from one of the military towers

an overview of the military installation

Midway through our drive into the Sierra Nevada mountains the next day. Lots of small, winding roads.

Our seemingly secluded picnic spot was actually right next to a herd of goats 

watching the goats

we drove through several tiny towns on the way

all the buildings were white with flat roofs and these distinctive chimneys

You can see two small towns (on the right and in the center) and then snow-capped peaks (on the left)

They took us to this cool lookout where big boulders jutted out over the edge of a big drop-off

Granada 2

         Just a quick update here before we head off with our friends for a hike in the Sierra Nevada mountains just outside of Granada:

         After checking out the cathedral two days ago, our friend led us up to the neighborhood where he grew up: Albayzin, an old neighborhood up on one of the big hills on the edge of Granada. Below are some pictures from that trip. We’ll try to post our pictures from our trip to Alhambra yesterday sometime soon.

We've passed by several pieces made by a famous graffiti artist in Granada

We started up on our walk into Albayzin, a neighborhood with lots of small, steep, and curving streets. Our friend used to ride his bike down streets like this when he lived here as a boy

There are lots of "carmens" in Granada: houses with gardens next to them. Here we are trying to peek in to see one.

This was all we could see for this one. Another one we had a partial view of had lots of lemon trees.

lots of neat old houses in the neighborhood

you can see the garden starting to creep over the wall

at the top of our walk was the Mirador San Nicolas - a plaza with an incredible view of Alhambra and lots and lots of tourists

here's the view of Alhambra

We continued walking around for the rest of the evening and passed by our friend's old house (which also had an incredible view of the city). We got to see the sun go down behind the mountains surrounding the city.

Granada 1

         On Thursday night, two of our friends from Manila (and their new son) arrive in Salamanca. The husband is Spanish and they’re in the country visiting his family. They’d been on a week-long trip within Spain and stopped in Salamanca for one night. We met up for breakfast on Friday and took a quick trip through some of the sights of central Salamanca before we all managed to squeeze our luggage into their car and make our way down to Granada, where’s he’s from.

         We left a little after noon and made our way through the plains of Castilla y Leon and Castilla-la Mancha, stopping for a huge lunch in Toledo. Once we passed into Andalucia all we could see were olive trees in every direction. We passed through lots of mountains and smaller hills along the way before finally arriving into Granada around 9:30pm. We’re staying in his parents’ apartment, right in the middle of town.

         We had a long, leisurely morning today and then went out for a walk in downtown, stopping into the cathedral for some time. Our Spanish friend studied art history in school so he was able to tell us lots of interesting stories about all the old buildings. There’s a lot fascinating history here, much of which shows up in the architecture, especially the combinations of Muslim and Christian elements.

         We just finished up a very long siesta and are planning on heading out to explore another part of time this evening. We have early morning tickets for Alhambra tomorrow.

On Friday, we took one last look at the Salamanca Cathedral

we showed our friends an unusual detail in the carving 

during the 1992 renovations, they added an astronaut onto the facade

During the drive, we saw several Osborne bulls

we passed by a dam during the drive

we had a quick stop in Toledo for lunch

as soon as got into Analucia olive trees were everywhere

We passed through some beautiful mountains right before arriving in Granada

a view of Alhambra at night

The pomegranate (granada in Spanish) is the symbol of the city. It shows up everywhere

lots of the old streets were very narrow, some with mosaics on the ground like this 

a view of the Arab market

outside of Granada's cathedral

near the cathedral were several places selling all sorts of teas and spices

the crest of imperial Spain