Early in the year we were feeling pretty jaded and thought that we needed to recharge our batteries a bit — we'd only had a few days off since getting back from Australia last summer. So we used up a few travel points to book a weekend away in Andalucía.
Granada, Alhambra and Albayzin
We landed at Malaga and drove along the coast road before we turned in land to Granada. We stopped for a
bite to eat at a fantastic beach front restaurant. It was sunny and quite warm — which was a great
start as it was a literally freezing February back home.
We started out in Granada by joining the locals for an early evening walk. It's the best part of the
Andalucían life. You window shop, stop for a drink, have a bite of tapas, meet some friends —
all on a warm evening. If you are 6 feet or more you will stick out a bit though … and Anne
seemed to be the only woman with grey hair. This photo also shows how southern Europeans can show
dramatic modern sculpture in a city.
On our second day we took a tour of Alhambra. The complex is huge with controlled entry and a warren
of courtyards and passages in the main palaces. So we recommend the tour to make sure you see everything
and understand what you are looking at.
The architecture is fantastic, especially because much of it is so simple — molded plaster pieces and tiles
fitted into larger patterns.
There are several beautiful courtyards that mix water, shady verandas and lots of sky. This one is the Court of
the Myrtles in the main Palace.
This is the famous Patio de los Leones — after the lions round the fountain. It was winter and the stone
buildings felt pretty cold, but with some effort you could imagine the palace filled with rugs, cushions and
heaters.
On our last day in Granada we went for a walk round Albayzin — a hillside covered with narrow
lanes and old houses. It is now a very cool place to live and lots of the buildings are being renovated.
A highlight of the visit to Albayzin is the view back to Alhambra.
Córdoba and Mezquita
We drove from Granada to Córdoba on the next afternoon. We both commented that we'd been driving for some
time through a long valley covered with olive groves. Hours later the countryside was still covered with an
endless sea of olives trees. We stopped to get a picture, but it's hard to capture the impression it made.
Córdoba is a strange mix of ancient and modern. Of Roman, Arab, Byzantine and African. Around any street
corner you can find a building mixing two or three architectures. It is quite high up so quite cool in
February, but much better than the heat of summer.
The narrow streets of the Judera are strange to a Western European. We are used to houses that face outwards
— that try to impress. But here the streets are just flat whitewashed walls with small doors and few
windows.
And that's because all the best stuff is in the middle. Even the smallest houses face on to interior patios
with fountains and flowers. For John, this is the way forward (back?) for urban planning rather than the fake
villages we see in Britain.
We found a great little tea shop on a street in the Judera. A great place to relax after a long day's walking
round the sites. The range of flavoured teas can be daunting at first but they are well worth a try.
But the best of the best is the Mezquita — one of the great buildings of the world. Many of
you will have seen pictures of the famous arches even if you haven't been there.
Many of Spain's greatest Mosques were first turned into churches or cathedrals and eventually replaced. The
Christians of Cordoba did put a huge church in the middle of the Mezaquita, and side chapels have blocked
many of the windows.
But they loved the Mezquita and resisted several efforts to knock it down. So in the original parts of the
building you can still see many of the Islamic geometric patterns and inscriptions.