[Photos: The Alhambra, Granada. Details, Courtyards, Courtyard of the Lions, Generalife, Views to Granada]
Another good 8-ish getaway for the hour- and a half drive to Granada for the Alhambra. Most of it on 120km/h roads, so the distance disappears remarkably fast. We have had the first properly cold weather since New Zealand. On the way into Granada, the car thermometer went from 18 to 15 to 10, then finally as low as 9 degrees coming over the hills just before Granada. It was blowing a gale too. The GPS took us to the Alhambra carpark satisfactorily. Thankfully we had learnt from previous daytrips, and had warm gear in the boot, so we were able to add the bottoms onto our zip-off trousers, put on shoes and socks and don our polarfleeces.
Got our tickets in a few minutes, with only one or two ahead of us in the queue. Obviously there is no issue about needing pre-booking at this time of year. We were given the 10am slot for the Nasrid Palaces where the best carving, decoration and fountain courts are to be seen. We got there a couple of minutes before opening time, so had a coffee, partly to warm up as we were cold even with our warm gear on. Later on at one point during our tour we discovered the reason why – there was fresh snow on the hills above the city!
The Alhambra was every bit as good as last time we were here 27 years ago. More of it open, some places closed or under renovation, but that is par for the course. Last time we used a whole 36-shot roll of slide film – easily twice as much as any other single sight in our 4-month Europe OE of 1982. This time, using the wonders of modern technology, I took 215 shots. I must say our camera has been superb. Its zoom is 25-300 (12X) giving both a very generous wide angle, and a hefty telephoto. It is very rare that I am ever forced to use the flash, and the low light quality is streets ahead of any previous digital camera we have used. Yet it is still small enough to pop into a packet. We have seen literally hundreds of these Panasonic TZ cameras, so I can't be the only traveller who likes them. This time, I made sure I had plenty of detail shots, as it is in the detail that the Moors excelled.
As before, we really enjoyed our visit. The spaces are so attractive, and the detail so special. Since 1982 they have opened up Charles V's palace as three museums, which though small were interesting. There were two things we missed – the Court of the Lions was without lions as they are being restored (a 4-20mm coating of hard water deposits being removed), and I couldn't find a particular 1982 detail shot I wanted a new digital copy of. Come to think of it, the donkeys the staff were using for maintenance tasks in 1982 were missing this time too. However the visit was a real thrill. One of the few times we have returned somewhere and been just as impressed.
The normal recommended tour time is 3 hours. We managed to stretch it to 5 hours car-to-car, which gives a measure of how much we found to marvel at. There were plenty of things in this visit that we hadn't noticed last time round, and in particular how attractive the city of Granada is as viewed from the Alhambra. There are so many trees, gardens and lovely courtyard houses. A huge advantage of the time of year we are here is that the crowds are entirely manageable. If I wanted a shot without people, it was normally achievable, even in the long vistas of fountains on the Generalife. So all up, a trip well worth making again. Sandy and Lynette as first time visitors here thought it was the single best thing from their trip.
After the Alhambra visit, we drove down the hill to the city, where we wanted to check out the cathedral and have a bit of a look around. At the cathedral, we were in two minds as to whether to pay for yet another cathedral visit, but we were glad we paid up. It is a massive building, with the distinction of the altar being near the middle rather than right at the top end.
I had found Voltaren so effective that I decided that some more might prove useful. No problem at all over the counter at a farmacia. A pack of 40 tablets cost me the grand sum of 3.12€. How come a similar purchase in NZ is so massively more expensive? Somebody is making a whopping profit. We keep thinking that New Zealand is a cheap place to live, but the more we see of southern Europe, the more expensive NZ looks.
For dinner we were looking for a decent meal, but not much open so we ended up back at our place of a few nights ago, where we had another good and simple meal.
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