We started our second day very early because we had an 8:30 am ticket to the Nasrid Palaces in the Alhambra. A couple of notes. Your ticket gets you general admission to the Alhambra all day long, BUT it gets you a timed entrance to one section of the Alhambra known as the Nasrid Palaces. The entire place is lovely, but you are going there for the Nasrid Palaces. They are fantastic.
The Alhambra is an incredibly palace and fortress complex that is nearly 800 years old. This site is why people visit Granada. I didn’t know much about it, other than to say, “there is something famous called the Alhambra.” Sam knew all about it and even said it was a place any kid from the middle east learned about and wanted to see at some point. If he was cliche enough to call it a bucket list destination, he would have done so.
To get to the entrance of the palaces in time, we need to be up early. I can’t state enough how annoyed I was at waking up at 7 am on my first day of vacation. The alarm went off, and we trudged uphill 25 minutes to a location we were not 100% sure where to queue up. We stopped for a coffee and were ignored for at least a minute before the cafe owner stopped talking to his friends and got up to take our orders. The saltiness of the staff in the service industry is a Spanish standard.
Not far from the cafe, we passed through the arch of the Puerta de las Granadas and into the Alhambra Forest. It was a quiet and peaceful walk that morning. I later appreciated how lucky we were to be there when it was so quiet after discovering how many tourists and locals would be enjoying it later in the day.
I often have a little bit of traveler anxiety, and I started to feel it that morning. My worry is never around safety or security, but it is almost always about deviating from the itinerary. Over the years, I’ve gotten that in check, and it has become a thing I’m aware of, but I do not let it control my trips. Sam’s laissez-faire approach to travel has certainly helped me with this over the years. However, I was out of practice, and I was very nervous we would not get to the palace at 8:30 and that we missed the audio guides at the first entrance to the Alhambra. All of that worry was for naught, and we were able to get the audio guides right before the Nasrid palaces, and we had ample time to meet our deadline.
While I was in line for the audioguide, I chatted with a traveler from Germany. He was on a 4 week trip by himself in Spain. I was super envious of his time off and delighted to hear that Seville was his favorite place in Spain.
I won’t bore you with details of the palace; it is truly gorgeous. In many ceilings, there is a honeycomb effect called muqarnas that I found transfixing. One of the things that stand out is the amount of running water and pools. Sometimes it’s a big centerpiece fountain like the one in the Court of the Lions. Other times its small streams cunt into the marble. It gives the whole place a cool, clean, and living quality. I mentioned it to Sam, and he told me that Arab literature and poetry changed during the Andalucian period. For the first time, water was actually in surplus, so it began being appreciated in writing. I’ll take some time soon and try to read some poetry from this time.
We spent about 4 hours in the Alhambra complex exploring the other palaces and the fortress section. I gained some U.S. history while there because Washington Irving is a big deal at the Alhambra. All I knew about him was that he was a writer, and he was different than George Washington Carver. My favorite quote in the Wikipedia entry is, “Irving is largely credited as the first American Man of Letters and the first to earn his living solely by his pen.” He’s celebrated because he wrote Tales of the Alhambra, a book I have not read. Maybe I should learn more about Irving, but I’m not totally intrigued by a privileged man living an adventure. Admittedly, he did seem to have an incredible life.
On our way out of the Alhambra, we visited the Generalife. This was considered the ruler’s country getaway retreat, which sounds nice, but it’s close. REALLY close. We walked there from within the Alhambra park. The cafe we stopped for breakfast was significantly further away from the Nasrid Palaces than the Generalife. But when the bosses got fed up with the palace, they retreated to their palatial mansion with incredible gardens a kilometer away. I thought their retreat would be far away, so far you couldn’t see it. I was very wrong. One of the more exciting features is a stairway that has running water built into the handrails.
We spent the rest of the day wandering the streets of Granada. We went through a street famous for Arab tea shops and discovered they were tacky and made our way to a renowned overlook called Mirador de San Nicolás. I was tired and hungry by the time we got there, so I was not patient enough to wait for a panoramic photo. It is an excellent view of the Alhambra. At one point, it was a hidden gem for travelers. Now, every travel book and hotel concierge recommends you go there.
In the evening, we continued touring the city and realized we had probably seen the most exciting things it had to offer. We found an outdoor book market while it was closing and walked through it before dinner. Tonight was not a tapas dinner but a proper meal at La Auténtica Carmela. I had my first bowl of salmorejo and loved it. Salmorejo is a cold tomato and garlic soup with bits of ham and boiled egg on the top. I loved it so much I had it a couple more times during the trip. This was out last night in Granada, and 1.5 days seemed just the right amount for this town.
Next: Spain Day 3 – Road Trip
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