Alhambra

October 14, 2009

It’s a long uphill walk to the Alhambra. It’s visible from below. It doesn’t look as far as it is when you’re walking. We had made the reservations via the internet. Good thing. As we were in the process of getting our tickets, there came an announcement that the morning tickets were sold out, but you could buy tickets for the afternoon. Poor them for all those waiting in line and lucky us. The first thing that we did was to head for the Palacios Nazaries. It is a 20 minute walk from the entrance and they warned us strongly not to be late. The palace is outstanding, over the top, overwhelming. This is the first real Moorish structure that I have seen and am truly impressed. There were so many impressive sights I don’t know how to start but let me describe one visual that caught my attention. In one room there were no windows but they had large domes pushing out in the ceiling and in the concave depressions there were located 8 sided star shaped areas to let the light in, in other words skylights. So cleaver. The Alcazaba is the fort and it’s just as impressive in its own way. I don’t like to go to the “must see” sites, but I must admit I’m glad that I’ve seen the Alhambra.

Later, after dinner, we have a 6pm reservation at an Arabic Bath, Banos Arabes, called Hammams. It is exotic to the max. It is a catacomb of baths of various sizes and temperatures. We are there for a long time before we have our aromatherapy scrub and massage. It was like a dungeon of physical pleasures. So if you ever come to Granada be sure to wear flowers in your hair and have a reservation at the Hammams. I am only sorry that I wasn’t silly enough to bring my camera.

Dinner was at 10pm. We must be getting to be more Spanish as the days are going by. But all we have is the house tapa, gratis. It is a salad with 2 croquettes. A funny thing about those croquettes, they’re just like Japanese croquettes. I wonder who got what first. I would think the Japanese got it from the Spanish. I’m pretty sure that they got the word button from them. In Spain and in Japan it’s boton, and I know that boton is not a Japanese word. I always thought that they got it from America. How Americacentric can I be? I digress. Besides the house tapa we ordered a Spanish omlette, a tortilla de Espana, and no they don’t cook it with bell peppers, etc. They cook it with potatoes. Anyway that was it. And now to bed. Tomorrow we will get up when we get up. It is the first day in 2 ½ weeks that we are not committed to anything but to follow our whim.