Granada, Spain
July 27th and 28th, 2002
Saturday and Sunday in Granada.... The bus ride to Granada is about 4 1/2 hours so we got there in the afternoon. The bus station is quite a distance outside of central Granada so we had to get another city bus to the main part of town!!! This time, we thought we'd be more careful and ask fellow bus passengers before we got off the bus. Well I guess we got the one guy who either didn't understand us or didn't really know, because we got off in the wrong place again! We wondered up and down a couple of streets before finding a nice policeman who pointed us in the right direction! After finding a place to stay for the night, we setoff in search of food. We ended up eating at an Indian restaurant that was all vegetarian. One of the dishes we tried was Paella. This is a very traditional Spanish dish which can be fixed many different ways depending on the location. It's basically rice with seasonings and then can contain different kinds of seafood or vegetables. The one at this Indian restaurant was one of the best we had on the whole trip because of the seasonings! Let me tell you that the night life in Granada is definitely alive! After dinner people come out from everywhere and stay out all night. Several times I was awoken in the middle of the night with the noise outside on the streets...
Anyway, let me give you a little background on Granada... With the
Sierra Nevada mountains as the background, Granada is a very beautiful
place.
"The last Muslim stronghold in Spain, Granada was lost by the ruler
Boabdil to Catholic monarchs Fernando and Isabel in 1492. Although
Christians torched all the mosques and the lower city, embers of
Granada's Arab essence still linger in the Albaicin and Alhambra."
The Alhambra is an old fortress palace up on top of one of the hills.
The first Nazarite King Alhamar built the fortress part named Alcazaba.
Then a royal palace named Alcazar was built for the Morrish rulers
Yusuf I (1333-1354) and Mohammed V (1354-1391). Fernando and Isabel
restored the Alcazar after they drove the Moors from Spain, but two
generations later, Emperor Carlos V demolished part of it to make way
for his Palacio de Carlos V. The grounds of the fortress were very
beautiful too.
These pictures are from the Gardens of the Alhambra....
These tall bushes were densely grown throughout one part of
the garden creating huge walls which would open up into
pretty courtyards of flowers, ponds, or fountains...
As we walked through the large walls of bushes, we came
out to the end of the garden which overlooked the entire city...
The Albaicin are the Arab quarters of the city. "The Moors built their
first fortress in this old Arab quarter. After the Reconquest, a small
Arab population clung to the neighborhood on the hill until their
expulsion in the 17th century. Since this is also on a hill, you
can get a really great view of the Alhambra on the hill across from it.
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