Overwhelming Alhambra

Visit to the magnificent Alhambra - the Moorish castle and Arab palace set high above the Darro river valley, opposite the "poor" Albaicin and Sacromonte neighborhoods. I don't know that there is any way to properly describe all the gorgeous craftsmanship and details that we saw here, so I think I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Interesting moments to recount:

- How the rooms of the Nasarids' Palace are so well suited to keeping a comfortable temperature in summer, with their marble walls and constantly-flowing fountains, that they are absolutely frigid now, during our late fall visit. Like the lizards and cats roaming around here, Mario and I find the nearest sun patch to lie in upon exiting the palace.

- How the year-round growing weather is so fantastic for the gardens, that we have found gardens filled with rose trees, not rose bushes, and the blooms are often on stems that stretch out for 6+ feet!

- How the mailbox for sending postcards to young future travellers is hidden inside the mouth of a lion in Alhambra.

- How there is also a summer palace up here, and that it is situated about a 25-minute walk from the "winter" palace. Way to flaut your place in society!

- How there are rusty stains in one of the fountains in the hall of the abassadors, alledgedly from the blood splatters of traitor getting killed. Gruesome.

- How there is a restoration project in process to restore the glory of all the gardens that were once here - using myrtle trees, gardeners are creating archways and walls and hedges of green between the Nasarids' Palace and the Generalife Summer Palace. It will take years, and they are constantly working on it, but if what is already done is any indication of the splendor to come, it will be beautiful.


- That Generalife is pronounced Hen-neh-rah-leaf-eh, and not how you think it is pronouced.

- and finally, how Mario's expectations, based on what he saw in a great-architecture-of-the-world book when he was young, were far surpassed, and that the coffee was good, too.