Day 5 - The Alhambra

With our newly-acquired breakfast supplies, we made café con leche and ate pastries in our apartment, then walked down the river to the Plaza Nueva, around the cathedral, past some outdoor spice and tea sellers, and into the Capilla Reál, the chapel where King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella are buried. Two huge stone sarcophagi indicate where F&I and their daughter and son-in-law lie, but you can also go down some steps to peer in to see their actual simple lead coffins. On the way down the steps, a man with a Cockney accent loudly warned Margy to "Watch your back!" He let her know that a suspicious-looking young fellow in a red jacket had been sneaking up on her, undoubtedly to pick her pocket. "That's my son," Margy replied. They all had a good laugh.

Isabella had a spectacular art collection, including one Botticelli. The paintings that hadn't been plundered by Napoleon were on display.

We had a bit of time before we could enter the Alhambra at 2 p.m., so we wandered around the neighborhood at the base of the fort. Margy was freezing in a short-sleeved shirt, so she bought a shirt at a little Moroccan store. We also wandered into the Corral de Carbón, a large courtyard with wonderful Moorish archway entrance, and had grilled cheese sandwiches in the Plaza Nueva, where we talked to an American father and son who were visiting from Berlin.



At last, we could bus up to the Alhambra entrance, pick up our tickets and audioguides, and enter the Alhambra! We had to wait until 6 p.m. to enter the Palacio de Nazariés (the Moorish palace), so we had plenty of time to see the Generalife (the summer palace and gardens), the Alcazaba (fort and towers), and the Palace of Carlos V, which contained an exhibition of interesting slo-mo video art.

• Great Buildings: The Alhambra


• Wikipedia: The Alhambra

The Alhambra was magical and amazing. It earned Zac's highest accolade -- it was "insane." In the room after room in the Palacio de Nazariés we saw fine tesselated tilework, plaster reliefs like intricate 3D lacework, including stalactite-like ceilings, and the phrase "There is no conqueror but Allah" repeated endlessly in Arabic lettering.



Finally, it was close to 8 p.m. when the Alhambra closes, and we walked down a path round the back side of the Alhambra complex down to the Rio Darro, the Albaicín, and our apartment. We had dinner in the Bodega Castañeda to the sounds of an older man passionately playing flamenco on a guitar, including holding the guitar behind his head while strumming. We didn't know enough about flamenco to guess whether this was normal behavior.

On the way home we bought a few Morrocan pastries from the local tearoom, and struck a conversation with Ahmed, the owner. He asked each of us our names and wrote them our phonetically in the Arabic alphabet on his business cards.