Today was all about visiting the Alhambra Palace. Granada’s main income is through tourism and the palace is the main draw card. Should you be contemplating a visit here, a strong word of advice is to book months in advance. Entry is timed and space is limited. Also, come in the off season as we reckon it would be as ugly as all hell in summer.
A quick breakfast followed by a well-advised taxi ride to the main entrance. The palace is set atop of a hill and with uneven surfaces and a very steep climb, a ride in an automobile is a very smart idea. The palace is known for its gardens as well as its architecture.
We will give you a quick synopsis of the history of when and why the palace is here. It is a palace as well as a fortress complex and is one of the most famous monuments of Islamic architecture. It is also one of the best-preserved palaces of the historic Islamic world, in addition to containing notable examples of Spanish Renaissance architecture.
The palace was begun in 1238 atop the Sabika Hill in Granada which is an outcrop of the Sierra Nevada. In fact, today there was still snow on the tops of the mountains which were not all that far away, and you could see the ski runs. This snow has added a slight coolness to our time here which has been a welcome relief.
The most significant construction campaigns, which gave the Royal palaces much of their character, took place in the 14thcentury. We are not going into the names of all the characters involved as they don’t mean anything to us and probably won’t to you guys.
The site was pretty much occupied as royal courts, and the various palaces were altered over time, but it was left uncompleted in the early 17th century.
After being allowed to fall into disrepair for centuries, with its buildings occupied by squatters, the Alhambra was rediscovered following the defeat of Napoleon 1, whose troops destroyed parts of the site. The rediscoverers, were first British intellectuals and then other American and Northern European Romantic travellers.
As you can surmise, it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
We spent nearly four hours touring the gardens, palaces and fortifications but our favourite was the gardens. All the fountains are gravity fed which is cool. We spent some time working out the mechanics of many of the fountains. This is not to say that we didn’t appreciate the very fine and detailed plaster work, handmade tiles or wood carved ceilings.
On completion of our time at the palace, we walked down around the outside of it and into the cool green valley back towards town.
We stopped on the way for some sustenance and enjoyed the vibe of the place…….UNTIL…..we heard the Three Amigos belting out their four songs. You know how sometimes (like with bagpipes), you just want to strangle the buggers, well we were well on that way.
Back to the hotel for a siesta before heading out later tonight for further food fortifications and to get ready for our car trip back to Sevilla tomorrow.
We wandered back out at 6.30pm to go and see what we thought might whet our appetites and of course we were not disappointed. The photo is of the main cathedral that we went in and saw last night but got ourselves spooked.
There has been a couple of observations that we have made about Granada. Firstly, we have only seen a few homeless people, but we think that because we are so near the palace and a huge tourist area that they have cleared them away. The place just looks a little too pristine with minimal litter though there is graffiti in some of the alleyways. Second observation is that all the waiters in the cafes/restaurants are all male (young and old) and it seems it is more of a career here. There is no tipping 👍👍👍 (but you can round up), so that means they are paid a living wage which is a lot fairer way.
We found this really cool shop that sold flamingo dresses for ladies to toddlers. We will see a lot more of these back in Sevilla when we go to the festival on Sunday.
Broke a record today with 20,999 steps but we know it was more. We need to check the Fitbit parameters to see what is happening.
Rowkin Rovings Blog 
It was my favourite place I visited as a backpacker in about 1978, and I made sure I visited it again on our visit to Spain in 2018, wow, 40 years later. It was just as good, and thank goodness they limit the visitors now. I have become obsessed with the Moroccan style blue, green, black and gold tiles and have been trying to incorporate some of the patterns and colours in patchwork and other crafts.
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