Granada

We had an early start to get to Granada to visit the Al Alhambra which is about 1 ½ hour on the bus with one pit stop. We passed through Malaga and Torromelinos (made famous by James Michener in his book ‘The Drifters’).
Along the route, we saw miles and miles of olive groves and we were told that there are 400 million trees in Andalusia and they are extremely valuable at 7,000 Euro per tree. Olive trees live over 100 years and they are all harvested manually as the machinery did not work on the extremely sloped terrain. It tore up the roots causing the tree to fail so they went back to the age’s old method of shaking the olives out of the trees. The groves are beautiful with the trees in straight lines regardless of the hills, gullies, creeks, etc.
Granada is a beautiful city with a pedestrian zone in the city centre with really wide, tree lined boulevards with lovely buildings on either side. The city’s name means pomegranate and there are reproductions of it on many locations including this lovely fountain.
Our purpose for this trip is to visit the Al Alhambra (which means red in Arabic after the hair colour of the Berber sultan who built the citadel) which is now a self sustaining UNESCO World Heritage Site. The site has guides who take you through the gardens and the citadel which includes the palaces. The gardens are called Generalife (but not the insurance company but rather ‘paradise of god’). The current gardens are not representative of what existed during the Moorish occupation as it was occupied by a single family from 1492 (when the Moors where defeated) to 1921. The current gardens are situated on what would have been agricultural land providing food for the inhabitants of the citadel and, what now exists is much more formal in an Italianate style.
The living accommodations and luxuries where incredible when you consider that the rest of Europe, only a few hundred miles north, was in the dark ages. The Arabs were incredible engineers and architects built gravity feed watering system for which the aqueduct still functions and still operates the many fountains on the property. The stucco work and ceilings are truly amazing a look as fragile and beautiful as lace. At both this and the Pompeii site, we were struck by how man appears to forget all the good of the previous civilization when it falls. It appears that we have to re-invent the world in our image and not take the good forward.
Isabella of Christopher Columbus fame was the cause of the Moors being pushed back to Africa. She had married Ferdinand, had male heir and became restless so she started wars with the two remaining Arab controlled city kingdoms including Granada. The Spanish were successful in January 1492 and Columbus took the opportunity to ask for funding for his exploration to India. We all know the outcome of that expedition making for a very successful 1492 for Isabella.
Note to Maggie: Remember the lovely salad that we had at Parc Martin in Granada. It had potatoes, tuna, eggs, peppers, lettuce, tomato and oranges dressed with extra virgin olive oil . Try to get the recipe off the Internet when we get home.
We are hoping that the Straits of Gibraltar are calmer letting us conquer /visit a tiny portion of Africa tomorrow. Travelling is such hard work as we have a wakeup call in for 5:15 am. I know that for some this is the best time in the day but I am still looking for another 2 hours sleep.