Alhambra Adalánte

As written earlier, Alhambra is an astonishing castle built by an Arabian king in the 13th century. The gigantic castle and it’s palace and gardens dwell on the side of a cliff in the great Sierra Nevada mountain range.

Today we decided to put down our books and go study one of the most significant remnants of the Arabian presence in Spain. The Arabian culture has indeed had a major influence on the Spanish culture, and especially the Valencian area. Granada became center of commerce in the 13th and 14th century with its Arabian sultanship lasting as long as 1492, where the Spanish king drove out the Arabian forces.

We arrived at Alhambra at 5 o’clock and quickly found out that we were in somewhat of a hurry if we wanted to see the entire Alhambra before closing time. Eneough with the practicalities.

Alhambra was astounding! We started out by going to the sultans private gardens, the so called Generalife. These are built on the cliff opposite the castle, and were the sultans refugee and private home. These consist of a small palace and an impressive garden complex with small and big pools of water and a multitude of flora. The water is central for the arcitecture of the Alahmbra which is undelined by the many streams flowing through the Generalife even flowing inside the rails of one of the outdoor stairways.

From here we went on to see the Alcazaba, which is the military part of the complex. Here we entered the watchtower and were presented with a picturesque overview of Granada and Sierra Nevada.

Finally we entered the Palacio Nazaríes. This is part arabian and part spanish in its architecture, where most of the original (and somewhat restored) Arabian decorations are still intact. The palace is hard to describe, as the ornaments, decorations and mosaiks surpassed even our well developed imagination. Please see our picture gallery for a view of this fantastic place.

All trips like these are bound to contain at least one wierd experience. We had ours going on our way to see the watchtower. Here we ran into Andreas and Teddy from Jacobs school. They are in Spain to study spanish in Malaga - very strange coincidence.