Le Blog: Spain Road Trip: Days 14-15 (Granada)

On Friday we left the Costa Blanca. (We think it should be called the Costa de Blanca Personas.) Now it was time to go west to Andalucia! To Granada! It was a 5 hour drive, but the scenery was great. Spain now looks the way Ed remembers it from his trip with his mother and grandmother in 1989: beautiful hillsides full of orchards and striking geology with no high rises.

We arrived in Granada in the early evening and had a good dinner at a restaurant in a plaza.

On Saturday it was time for our whirlwind tour of Granada. This is a special city. After breakfast (including churros y chocolate) we started at "The Chapel" where the coffins of Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand are. We saw the jewel box that Queen Isabella supposedly gave to Columbus (filled with jewels) to finance his first trip to India . . . er . . . America. Then we went to "The Cathedral" (the second biggest in Spain). Then it started to rain, so Ed purchased umbrellas from a street vendor. Then we walked around the Moorish quarter. That was fun.

The afternoon was dedicated to seeing the Alhambra. Turns out the Alhambra is a kind of water park. Not only were there many fountains and reflecting pools, because the Moors associated water with God, but also copious amounts of water from the sky this day. It was pouring! (But it didn't matter until near the very end of the visit when we were quite wet.) Anyway, the Alhambra was a place the Moors built back when they controlled this part of Spain. It's kind of a special palace and fort and gardens all rolled into one. It is very ornate and detailed. In 1492, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand came down to Granada and more or less took it over and expelled the Moorish leader. And then Spain was united and Catholic. Washington Irving stayed there in the 1800s and wrote a book of tales of the Alhambra.

Anyway, here are pictures of our day in Granada: