The Plane in Spain

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• September 28
• September 29
• September 30
• October 1
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• October 3
• October 4

September 28

Velasquez at the Prado

Today was an early one, too, but not as early as Madrid or Seville. This is a good thing because I think we are beginning to get a bit fatigued, and with dinner so late, it's difficult to get to bed at 1:30 a.m., then get up at 7:30 a.m. The hotel had a nice spread for breakfast, then we checked out and waited out front for the tour bus.

Today's star is Carmen. Granavision runs some of the Alhambra tours. We took a very long bus ride through Granada. Carmen met us at the Alhambra's front gate. We were in the English language group, although most of the people in the group were German speakers.

In many ways, the Alhambra experience is a combination of Cordoba and Seville. The Alhambra is a combination of Moorish and Christian influences, but overwhelmingly Moorish. Brian read in today's newspaper that Granada is holding a vote to declare the Alhambra one of the Seven Wonders of the World. After seeing it, one can understand this burst of local civic pride.

The complex has several areas - a fort, a public palace, an ambassador's palace, the Catholic palace, the summer palace, and the gardens. The fort is called Alcazaba. It's a big heap o' bricks that guarded the whole Alhambra. It is all surrounded by a wall. The guard towers and gate were part of the Alcazaba.

The palaces have some unique decoration. Carmen explained the "cave-like" (think "stalactites") ceilings in many of the rooms reminded the people of Mohammed's living in a cave. She also explained the Islamic conception of paradise and how that was realized in the architecture of the complex. The fountains and aqueducts represent the rivers of paradise. The columns represent the palms in heaven.

The walls and ceilings contain the white molded pattern tile of alabaster and marble. The stone is pulverized, mixed with a cement, pressed into molds, then attached to the walls. The molding contains the phrase, "Only Allah is good." The lower part of the walls contain mosaic patterns, much like what we saw in Seville and Cordoba. I'll have to compare the patterns.

Although Islam prohibits images, in the courtard of the private palace is a fountain sitting on the backs of twelve lions. The guide said this is a direct Jewish influence. The Jewish inhabitants and the Arabs lived together fairly well. Christianity didn't fit in quite as well. After the Christian victory over the Arabs, Muslims and Jews continued to live in the Kingdom. They were forced to live in their own quarters, and had to pay a tax in order to continue to live among their Christian conquerors. After the death of King Charles V, the Arabs revolted. The revolt was crushed and Arabs and Jews wre expelled.

One of the Christian kings loved the Alhambra and began building a (rather ugly) palace in the middle of the compound. He died before it was finished, His son, Philip, did not like Granada, and moved the royal residence to a small northern village, which became Madrid. Oh, the whims of kings. But for Philip, there would be no traffic jams in Madrid.

The visit here in the Alhambra is different than what we saw in Seville, and to a lesser extent in Cordoba. In those cities, we visited buildings, but cities that have grown up around those buildings, while having the feel of an "old" city, are essentially modern, full of shops that you can find in downtown Washington, DC. The Alhambra has been preserved pretty much intact. It is far enough away from the city of Granada that it has not been commercialized. I think it's also been a royal compound, too. The complex was a royal compound when it was built, and that probably spared it from other kinds of development.

In Cordoba, Seville, and here in Granada, the hordes of tourists are of enormous number. I can't imagine what it must be like during the season. The guide operators have it down to a fine art of crowd management. Although language is sometimes a problem, by all means you should take a tour rather than do a walk-through on your own.

Just an embarrassing aside. I've been mixing up Granada and Grenada. Having been to both, I'm tempted to put together a tour of Graneda. People here look at you rather blankly when you ask about Grenada.

Following the tour, we had lunch at La Murilla, a completely forgettable Chinese restaurant. It is interesting, though, to see how the Spanish do Chinese. About as well as Americans do Chinese.

We returned to the hotel, retrieved our luggage, and headed out to the airport, about 14 km outside Granada. On this trip, we've traveled by trains, planes, buses, and automobiles. I'm wondering if we can work a ship into it?

Granada Airport is about the same size as Spokane, Washington, which is to say, not very big at all. Our plane was an Airbus 319, which is six seats across, no business or first class. It was about an hour and a half flight from Granada to Barcelona on Iberia Air, happily uneventful.

We arrived in Barcelona shortly after 8 p.m. We grabbed a cab and headed downtown. The cabbie let us out about 200 m short of our destination, and we ended up in the wrong hotel, right chain, wrong location. We walked down to the next block, found our hotel - HCC One, checked in, settled in, and went out to dinner. The hotel recommended Mediterrani, a restaurant nearly across the street. We had an excellent meal. I had pasta and loin of lamb. The boys had a salad with goat cheese, and squid. We closed our peepers after midnight.

I neglected to mention our walk around the neighborhood after dinner. We wanted the food to settle. The restaurant and the hotel are on Calle Diputacio. Gran Via runs parallel. It's very much a business street and is a major thoroughfare. We found a Turkish restaurant and a mid-Eastearn restaurant that look like good lunch opportunities. We saw one neighborhood bar full of what looks like rough trade. I think it's just guys recovering from work. Brian was imagining a gay bar. Ron was thinking aboout all of the unhealthy cigarette smoke.

We have a very nice hotel room. It comes with a vast breakfast buffet. The bidet makes a useful alternative sink when the sink is occuppied. Watch out for the shower. Both Brian and I were attacked by a wildly careening nozzle. Ron was apparently unafffected.