Al Hambra

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Today was a day I had been looking forward to for a long time. Today I got to see Al Hambra in all its glory. Even the weather played its part as we trudged for 30 minutes up the hill from our hotel passing a couple of caves with whitewashed entrances that were obviously inhabited. These caves, along with the ones in Sacromonte are lived in largely by gypsies and the children of wealthy northern Spaniards that run off to teach their parents a lesson. Go figure.

The Al Hambra is really a fortress city built over several centuries and once home to as many as 5000 people. The Al Hambra was the last Moorish stronghold in Europe. As the Christian reconquista moved south, capturing Cordoba in 1237 and Seville in 1248, the Nazarids clung on in Granada which they ruled until 1492, the year Columbus discovered the new world.

The Al Hambra is made up of four separate sights:

1) The General Life gardens, nothing to do with insurance. The General Life gardens lie beyond the Al Hambra walls and were home to a recreational building, or summer palace, for the Nasrid sultans and the gardens also generated much of the food for the Al Hambra. The gardens still produce tons of food each year, all of which goes to charity, and are reputedly the oldest continously cropped gardens in Europe.

2) The Palaceo Nazaries, a stunningly beautiful Moorish palace with fountains and courtyards and unbelievably beautiful, richly carved mosaics.

3) Charles V's imperial renaissance palace, an ugly squat box built beside the Palacio Nazaries, in fact part of the Nazarid palace was knocked down to make way for it. Bloody Vandal.

4) The Alcazaba, a military stronghold with barracks and defensive towers.

All in all an incredible place that displays the flowering of Moorish culture whilst the rest of Europe wallowed in the dark abes.

We ended our day joining hundreds of Granadans for their evening passeo, or stroll, through the main boulevards of tne city and treated ourselves to paella for dinner at some ungodly hour of the night. Wnen in Spain.

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