Granada Day 2

2 things before we start day 2.

Small history tangent

When the Umayyads first established their rule in Spain, they chose Cordoba as their capital. Over time, many Muslim rulers conquered many parts of the region, until finally they were captured by the Reconquesta in the 1200s. After that, a small part was left, with their capital in Granada. The Nasrids were just a tributary state of the northern powers, who charged them a large amount of gold as taxes.

Seeing the mighty Alhambra would remind you of the Muslim Andalusia at the peak of it's power, but it was nothing but a small palace-fortress of a local king who managed to cling on to power by paying large taxes to the actual rulers.

The Orange Trees

Let's get this out of the way. The first things you notice when you land in the region are orange trees filled with bright oranges waiting to be plucked. Every first time visitor must wonder - Can they be plucked? If so, why are there still so many left?

Is it not the season yet?

Pluck one and you'll find the explanation. They are sour and bitter enough to make them inedible. Apparently, they don't get the appropriate nutrients to make it sweet.

Day 2

We walked downhill to the city center searching for breakfast.
Time to pick up some Spanish words. The common breakfast item is toast with different spreads. Tostada with mantequilla is toast with butter. But first, I had to try the original churros. Despite being a popular place among locals, the churros at Cocteleria Granada were rather disappointing (just some ready made frozen stuff).

Hot chocolate in Spain is way better than milk + chocolate powder you get in Switzerland.

We printed the public transport card using the Granada Card. The instructions said, "Remember that in order to use the urban transport you must redeem the transport voucher in the ATM machines (Check map). Using LOC. BUS. Using LOC. BUS.".
Here's what it's actually saying:

• Go to any ticket machine in the city centre (NOT an ATM machine).
• Follow the instructions on the machine.
• It will ask your "Loc. Reservation number". You can find it in your reservation pdf. Do NOT enter this number. Instead, enter the LOC. BUS. number.

The Granada Cathedral is conveniently located in the city centre. We entered since it was part of the Granada card. The audio guide is free. It's basically a story of how they managed to clean the region from Muslim rule. Most of the structures inside were made to celebrate the reconquesta, including a gift from the Pope to congratulate them on their victory.


The Madrasa Palace is nearby, but we were getting late for our slot at the Nasrid palace in Alhambra, and didn't get time later.

The Isabel plaza nearby has a statue of Queen Isabel (the mastermind of the fall of Granada) and Christopher Columbus (who showed North America how to do massacres European style).

Alhambra

The small red buses of Granada can go up all the hills in the region where normal buses can't go. The city is a dense urban region, so you can't see structures like the Alhambra when you are close to it. But the view from far, there are many view points (Miradors) around the city.

There is a cemetary nearby which supposedly holds the grave of Muhammad Asad (the author of "Road to Mecca"), but we couldn't see it. We found out about this only when we met a couple of tourists came to us asking about it. We met the same tourists twice the next day in other places :). They still couldn't find any more details about that.

The audio-video guide here is pretty nice (it mostly talks about the structures themselves and not a lot about history).

Generalife

This is a garden next to Alhambra that is beautifully decorated with flowers and fountains. Very little remains from the original garden due to neglect in late Nasrid period and later. The audio guide mentioned a lawsuit that continued till the last century about the ownership of the garden.

A good side view of Alcazar part of Alhambra.

There were attempts to reproduce the historic structures, but it's hard to say if it really looked like the historic garden. Muslims brought a lot of advanced farming techniques to Andalusia and many are at display here.

Medina

Back to the main structure, we see the Medina (city) where the common people associated with the palace lived. If you are really interested in this kind of archeological pieces, you should visit Madinat al-Zahra near Cordoba.

The gates around this region have legends from various periods, e.g., how the reconquesta army came through one of the gates and shut it forever using a wall. A large portion of the walls here were damaged when Napolean conquered the city in the 1800s.

There used to be a large mosque here with an associated place for ablutions, but this was later converted to a church and a bath. Anyway, it was not open when we went.

We didn't find a functioning mosque, so we had to pray on the ground in this massive historic Muslim monument!

The minaret that was converted to a church bell.

Alcazar

This is the military part of Alhambra.

You can see the whole city here.

These used to be military barracks.

Nasrid Palace

This is where the Nasrid kings (or should I say governors of the Crown of Castille?) lived. There is a limit on how many people can enter at a time, which makes it difficult to get a ticket, but if you miss it, you can get close with the other Andalusian monuments (more on that in day 3).

If you look carefully, you'll notice a mix of Nasrid and Reconquesta symbols.

 

You'll soon appreciate the visitor limit :).

The walls of the palace are filled with the Nasrid moto "There is no victor except God". This is interesting considering that they hardly had any military victories. This was apparently done to deceive the local population into believing that they managed to capture some parts from the Christian kings (who nicely played along in return for gold).

I've highlighted the key that is mentioned in the audio guide because we couldn't find it. Image courtesy: Wikipedia.

The architecture is marvelous.

Garden.

The palace of lions.

Space of the month

Alhambra has a space that is allowed for the public for a month, which is not usually allowed. When we went, it was the quarters of Washington Irvine, an American writer who lived in the palace in the 1800s. Back then, parts of Alhambra were owned by various private owners. They received it following the reconquesta as gifts for their participation. Washington Irvine wrote "Tales of Alhambra" which made this place famous.

The watch towers. The audio guides has some interesting anecdotes (myths? tales?) from here.

With that, we come to the end of our Alhambra visit.
Architecture: Stunning.
Political Importance: Last Muslim European Government.
Relevance as political power in the region: Hardly any.

Rest of Granada

Iglesia de San Gil y Santa Ana. Church that was ... you know the story. It was not open for tourists.

Our street performer has a lot to learn.

We had a late lunch at El Taj. The food was ok. For dinner, we tried Moroccon at Restaurante Arabe Teteria Meknes Rahma. This was an absolute disappointment. It's super expensive, the food is meh, and the server was nice only till we entered. He almost forced us to order the item he wanted. The ambience is good, though (we don't care about ambiences). If you are in the region, check out the Syrian restaurants nearby. More on that later.