Granada is really all about the Alhambra, a huge hilltop complex containing gardens, palaces and fortresses built at the time of the Muslim emirates in the southern Iberia. I can't foresee why else people flock here. It's a great city on its own as well, with its medieval clobbered streets and whole barrios carved out of hillsides, but what's a trip to Granada without seeing the Alhambra?
The Alhambra was an attempt by the Muslim rulers of Granada to reconstruct heaven on earth, an admirable ambition considering that then they were the foremost civilisation in all of Europe. Yet no such attempt can be said to be truly successful, for the Paradise of which we read so vividly in Scripture cannot be taken too literally. The results, eight hundred odd years on, are for all to see - legions after legion of, not pilgrims, but camera-wielding tourists going for each other's jugular to claim for themselves the best picture shot, like the one above, and bringing Malcontent and Malice into what was intended to be a place where Man would walk at peace with God.
Atop the Alcazar in the Alhambra.
Alcazar meant fortress, and there were lots of these strewn across Andalusia, even today, as the Christian conquistadors neglected to dismantle them. In the background, the rolling foothills of, and eventually, the snowcapped Sierra Nevada.
Granada from the Alhambra. These are the barrios of which I write earlier on, which were built in medieval times.
Barrios are living quarters, and small communities unto themselves. Coming from Morocco, one felt less change and more continuity, as Moorish architecture drew its inspiration from a similar source as the Berber Almoravids and Almohads. Somehow, Andalusia feels more stony, and one can feel beneath one's feet the bones of the earth jutting out from below. Must be the clobbered streets.
An errant gnome in the
Generalife, the gardens of the Alhambra. A great pity it was early winter, for the gardens would have looked more splendid had the flowers been in full blossom, and had the leaves not fallen from some trees. Still, an Andalusian garden in winter looks a whole lot more inviting than most other places, especially further north.
The Alhambra provided an object lesson in photographic symmetry, one which Nicholas and I were at pains to learn, though he was to educate himself in it at my urgent behest. Credit to him - all the nice photographs in which I'm in were taken by him!
The westering sun in the gardens of the Alhambra. I would have liked to spend the night here if temperatures in Granada were not known to dip after sundown.
Granada is really all about the Alhambra, a huge hilltop complex containing gardens, palaces and fortresses built at the time of the Muslim emirates in the southern Iberia. I can't foresee why else people flock here. It's a great city on its own as well, with its medieval clobbered streets and whole barrios carved out of hillsides, but what's a trip to Granada without seeing the Alhambra?
The Alhambra was an attempt by the Muslim rulers of Granada to reconstruct heaven on earth, an admirable ambition considering that then they were the foremost civilisation in all of Europe. Yet no such attempt can be said to be truly successful, for the Paradise of which we read so vividly in Scripture cannot be taken too literally. The results, eight hundred odd years on, are for all to see - legions after legion of, not pilgrims, but camera-wielding tourists going for each other's jugular to claim for themselves the best picture shot, like the one above, and bringing Malcontent and Malice into what was intended to be a place where Man would walk at peace with God.
Atop the Alcazar in the Alhambra. Alcazar meant fortress, and there were lots of these strewn across Andalusia, even today, as the Christian conquistadors neglected to dismantle them. In the background, the rolling foothills of, and eventually, the snowcapped Sierra Nevada.
Granada from the Alhambra. These are the barrios of which I write earlier on, which were built in medieval times. Barrios are living quarters, and small communities unto themselves. Coming from Morocco, one felt less change and more continuity, as Moorish architecture drew its inspiration from a similar source as the Berber Almoravids and Almohads. Somehow, Andalusia feels more stony, and one can feel beneath one's feet the bones of the earth jutting out from below. Must be the clobbered streets.
An errant gnome in the Generalife, the gardens of the Alhambra. A great pity it was early winter, for the gardens would have looked more splendid had the flowers been in full blossom, and had the leaves not fallen from some trees. Still, an Andalusian garden in winter looks a whole lot more inviting than most other places, especially further north.
The Alhambra provided an object lesson in photographic symmetry, one which Nicholas and I were at pains to learn, though he was to educate himself in it at my urgent behest. Credit to him - all the nice photographs in which I'm in were taken by him!
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