Sunday part 1

 The first part of the day was The Alhambra which is ranked in the top 10 on some lists for the UNESCO World Heritage sites in all the world.

It certainly lived up to our expectations!!

We caught the city bus up to the top of the hill and by 8:15 we were in line for our timed 8:30 entrance into the Nasrid Palaces, Being the first group of the day was wonderful as we could take photos and look at things without the hoards of people who came after us. The Alhambra area is quite large and some areas are payable and some not. 

We had tickets for everywhere and as we were pre-warned to take our passports with us we had no problems at any of the four times we were checked.

The high point of the Nasrid era was in the mid 1300’s. These people were Muslims who had been there hundreds of years. 

By 1492 their society was corrupt and the muslims had been slowly pushed back out of Spain.Only the kingdom of Granada remained. Ferdinand and Isabel  (of Christopher Columbus fame) finally defeated them and through an agreement with the sultan of the time, before the final takeover (really a capitulation) it was agreed by the Catholics to keep the Muslim palaces intact and not destroy them ( as normally would have happened)

Incidentally we saw Ferdinand and Isabel’s marble tombs yesterday in the Royal crypt ( no photos were allowed).

The third photo above is actually the inside of one of the domes.

More photo’s!

The photo above is actually a painted roof.

Still more photo’s. The first is another inside dome and zoomed in shows how beautiful the artistry is.

The next area was the unfinished palace of Carlos the fifth (which is after Granada was reconquered by the Catholic’s). It is now a fine arts palace and honestly was not as interesting as the Nasrid palaces.

One of the photos is a panoramic shot of the open air inside  and a photo of a painting I thought was very impressive.

The final area we saw was called Generalife. Originally a second palace of the Sultans located a minute or two (by horse) from the original palaces, it is beautiful but was not maintained in the original condition of the Muslim era. There are beautiful gardens between the two areas and the palace itself is not that great when compared to the first.

We walked down the hill 2 1/2  hours later and went into the city for lunch.