La Alhambra in Granada

The main site to see in Granada is the Moorish palace, Alhambra. It is situated on a hill overlooking the city of Granada and the surrounding farmland and mountains. To access the palace itself you have to purchase a ticket for to enter the Alhambra and pay extra for the ticket for the palace. The ticket has a very specfic time at which you must be at the palace ready to enter. A friend in the program had gone a few weeks earlier and had warned me that they are very strict on the entry times. She had a pretty in depth sob story about not being there on time. Not to mention it is rather difficult to get tickets and they strongly recommend you order them in advance.

Of course I decided to be lazy and just buy tickets when I got there. Plus I wanted until the last day of my trip to go see it, I would be leaving that evening. To account for my lack of planning, and to be sure that I got tickets, I decided I would wake up at 7am and make the somewhat strenous hike up the hill. The alhambra opened at 9am, so I assumed I would be the first one there and hopefully not have to worry about not getting a ticket

The night before, like all the nights I was there, I went out to the bars and had arrived home late, by late I mean 5am. My friend claimed that night that there was no way I was going to wake up at 7am to go, to which I responded with the claim "¡Soy una maquina!" (I am a machine). The next morning I promptly awoke at 10am and proceed to put on my cigarette scented clothes from the night before and headed off to see the Alhambra. I looked and smelled terrible.

Once again my stupidity and laziness paid off and there was a ticket to enter the palace inside the Alhambra soon after I arrived. Also I had to good fortune to have excellent weather that day, it was about 60 degrees and sunny.

The Alhambra as a whole is huge and consists of various gardens and living areas surrounded by a huge wall. The walls and towers had some amazing views of the city, countryside and mountains.

Someone told me that the Moors really emphasized water and greenery in their palaces. I guess that would be natural way to display wealth in a desert culture.

The tour of the palace itself was amazing. There was so much detail work on the walls, mostly carvings in Arabic. Various reflecting ponds were a sight to behold. Its difficult to describe all of the beauty I saw that day and as a result I ended up taking about 200 pictures of just the Alhambra and the views to be seen from it.

After about 5 hours of just walking and drinking in the sights, I decided to call my friend and see if he wanted to get lunch with me. It was about 3:30pm... he was still sleeping.

In the end La Alhambra, along with the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, was one of the most amazing things I have seen in my short life. Both of them literally took my breath away.

Here is a photo take by a kind German who suggested the pose. It felt like high school photo day and I appreciated the direction.