We took a taxi from the train station to a hotel we had booked and Teo decided to stay at this place too. Mum and dad got a double and me a single, eve though it had two beds and it was bigger then mum and dads room. Woohoo! There was also really good signal Wi-Fi and it was free too! This is of course what I spent my time doing until we were too hungry.
We couldn’t seem to find anything to eat at they were all Tapas bars that either had smoking or wouldn’t allow under 18s. So we eventually found a Chinese restaurant that we hadn’t seen before anywhere else before.
We then went back home to watch Pirates of the Caribbean 2 on our laptop. We started watching it really late because it still felt reasonably early to us, we still hadn’t adjusted to the time, so even though mum and dad couldn’t stay awake ‘til the end of the movie, I watched until 1am… yay!!!
So of course I slept in late this morning, until about 11:30 which was I guess a good time to go. We had booked tickets to the Alhambra this day which would start at 2 pm. So we went out for lunch/breakfast at a Turkish place, the headed off to The Alhambra. Because mum had booked online we got our tickets printed off in a big yellow box which was fun :P
So we started our 6 hour journey through the Generalife Gardens (Generalife is pronounced something like Heneralifé). Generalife is taken from the Arabic word meaning architect garden which makes sense because so much effort and thought must have gone into making these gardens. There were hedges, fountains and all kinda of flowers. We must have come on one of the best days because it was so beautiful and sunny, barely a cloud and it was spring so all the flowers were in bloom; pansies, roses, snap dragons, opium poppies, orange trees, purple, pink, yellow, white and occasional blue. Dad of course didn’t like it so much, being the “European weeds” but mum and I thought it was beautiful. We had to wait to get into the patio section because the ticket checkers only let in 50-100 people every 5 minutes or so. But once you were in you could take as long as you’d like. Often when a large crowd would come in, we’d stay in one spot and wait for them all to pass at the tourist pace and we’d have the place almost to ourselves. Teo found it difficult with all the crowds so he didn’t go through into the next section and then only spent an hour in total in the gardens.
We continued on and looked at many fountains, flowers and fish. As we began to finish this section we climbed up some stairs-“Escalera del agua” stairs of water. Along the handrail of these outside stairs was a sort of channel with running water down it. The water was really cool which was great on such a hot day. I think it was melted snow water from the mountains.
The next area we headed for was Palacio de Carlos V. We walked through some more gardens and saw a Medina wall.
We then went to “The Gate of Seven Floors”, a hug round tower where you could go underground. There wasn’t really anything to see there but it was still interesting.
After this we went on a road where lots of tourist shops were. We saw in one of them that they had the Moorish carvings and tiling inside. We took a picture of the coke machines in front of it. This carving is almost exactly the same as the carvings we saw in the Medersa in Marrakech. This carving was all over the place.
So next we entered the Santa Maria Church. There was a huge statue like thing at the opposite end from the door. It was strangely pink in a way but also gold. There was mother Mary in the middle and Jesus with cherubs and God at the top. It was quiet in there and I was beginning to become very tired so it was nice to sit down in this calm area for a while.
We then finally arrived at Palacio de Carlos V. It looked like a huge bull-ring within a square. Kind of like a mini colosseum look alike. Dad went to see the Restaurado room, which mum and I guessed as the restaurant but it actually means restoration. Inside there was a lion statue that, when we went back to the entrance/exit we saw how they restored the lion fountain on a T.V screen.
We continued on to the fort at the front, placed atop the cliff. It was called “The Alcazaba”. Here there were many lookout areas where we could see great views all over the city and the mountains. There was a belltower and ruined suburb area of where some people used to live.
We had to finish slightly sooner than we’d have liked as we needed to get lined up for the Nazaries Palace at 6.
As we came through the first part of the Palace we noticed a pattern made into the path we were walking along out of stones. In the pattern seemed to be some sort of plant picture. Dad thought it looked like a Banksia but we guessed that might not have been the original aim of the artist.
We walked into the first room and saw the amazing tiling. The black, white and green were the main colours used but occasionally yellows, blues and sometimes reds were used as well.
Ferdinand and Isabella had converted many things throughout this palace into their own either Christian or Spanish decorations. Plus and Ultra words were often engraved or somehow placed onto the walls and rooves. In this first room a tiling of the crown had been placed into the wall. There was a little add-on room we couldn’t enter in here filled with the stucco carvings on the wall too.
We then found ourselves in an outside area very similar to the Marrakech Medersa. It took us into a small hallway with more stucco, into a lovely fountain/pond area.
There was a huge wooden door that we then walked through into an enclosed room with more green and black tiling, and a really high ceiling with beautiful wooden patterns. On two of the walls 5 arched windows sit high up with iron lacing covering it, casting delicate shadows onto the floor.
Opposite this room was another wooden door and to the right of this door was a smaller one which took us into a very ornate stucco design. The roof here was redone by Isabella and Ferdinand. There was an eagle with a coat of arms engraved with it and also a big F and a big Y as, in Latin, Isabella was spelt with a Y.
Outside was another little garden area where a fountain stood. This is originally where the lion statue stood that dad saw in restoration. Here I saw, carved out of the stucco, the same eagle and coat of arms.
Mum’s camera battery ran out at this point so I’m struggling to remember exactly how we got to places but I do remember walking across a bridge with another bridge opposite. The opposite bridge looked very curved :S
We sat down for a while on a nice little seat in front of a fountain surrounded by box hedging but we had to hurry it up as it was approaching to 8 pm when we had to leave. We walked through some more of the Generalife area on our way out and walked through more fountains and roses. Some English people who were sitting down wanted to take a photo of dad because he looked like some T.V phone ad host. On our walk back to the hotel we passed a fountain that we took a photo of as we came through the first time. Part of the fountain sculptures were pomegranates. This is when I realised, the Banksia looking thing in the path of the Nazarides palace was a pomegranate.
We finished the Alhambra about quarter past 8 and loved every moment of it J
We attempted to find a restaurant later but found it very difficult as it seems, in Spain, they don’t eat anything but ice-cream and sugar filled pastries. We did eventually find somewhere which seemed pretty good but I don’t think I would go back there…
Next morning I spent the whole time on the internet while mum dad and Teo went shopping and posted a parcel home including mums lamp and my awesome hat!
The four of us had a chat in my room and then we went and waved Teo off. He was taking a bus to Madrid because a train to Madrid cost like $150.
We then saw a fountain/statue of Mary and Jesus in a square on our way to the Cathedral. The Cathedral cost €3.50 so dad said to see a cathedral it wasn’t worth it so only mum and I went in. Inside everything was white and gold. Mum taught me how they got all this gold from South America like the movie El Dorado. There was also a huge statue area where, out of wood, a woman and a man prayed to Jesus. These people were Ferdinand and Isabella.
Afterwards we all went out for tea at a place we saw from the belltower in the Alhambra. So we sat in a shaded area looking up to Alhambra Fortress on the top of a cliff face.
We felt really tired after this so we decided to go back. I watched some Spanish T.V which was ok. I watched dubbed Will & Grace and Smallville so I knew what was going on. None of us slept well this night as the gunshot sound we heard in Ronda happened here as well. There seemed to be a football match or something that was obviously very important so lots of men were getting drunk and lighting fireworks and smashing windows. So last nights sleep wasn’t as peaceful as I would have liked.
We had to get up early so we could get to the 11:33 train today but when we arrived at the train station, they said the 11:33 train to Seville was booked out. The next train went at 4:34 so we waited 5 hours until we could get on the train. Nothing really happened throughout that time except we got a fish and tomato pasties and some biscuity things.
We arrived in Seville at 7:45…
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