May 15, 2012: Cartagena, Spain
	May 13, 2012: Cadiz, Spain
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From the Ship's Log:   Monday, May 14, 2012 Malaga, Spain 6:54am      Pilot embarked 7:51am      Safely docked 5:57pm      Vessel undocked and underway

Today, we'll be docking in Malaga, Spain. Although Malaga is itself an interesting city, the three of us have decided to book a shore excursion that will take us by bus from Malaga to the Spanish city of Granada so that we can visit the Alhambra- the Moorish and then Christian estate/enclave/fortress high above the city. It is supposed to be a collection of amazing architecture and beautiful gardens, and we are looking forward to it.

Arriving and Docking in Malaga

Our trip from Cadiz to Malaga was, of course, all done overnight. We had been told that we would pass through the Straits of Gibraltar a little after midnight, and we were up on deck to have a look, but all we saw were some lights off in the distance to the north; I don't recall that we could see any lights on the southern side.

By 6AM in the morning, we were nearing Malaga.

Docking in Malaga was typical of the cruise; we docked about eight in the morning, which gave me time to get up, have a bit of breakfast, and then get up on deck. I was in time to get a view of the Malaga harbor in early morning and also to take a short movie, one that you can watch with the player below:

(Mouseover Image if Video Controls Not Visible) The Harbor at Malaga, Spain

Our tour bus was scheduled to leave about eight-thirty, so a quarter hour before that the three of us were in the Vista Lounge, waiting for the tour to be called. After being there a short while, Greg began to feel bad, and wanted to go back to the suite for a while. He told us that if he didn't show up again before the tour left just to go on without him. So we waited until the last minute and then headed out to our bus, still hoping to see him rejoin us. As it turned out, he did not feel any better for having laid down for a while, and he ended up missing this particular shore excursion. It was unfortunate, because the tour was good, but on the other hand it was the only bad thing that happened on any of our shore excursions- or for the remainder of the trip, for that matter.

Our bus pulled away from the ship about eight-forty-five and we were on our way to Granada and The Alhambra.

Getting to The Alhambra

The bus ride to the Granada took about ninety minutes; it was a nice ride with a guide who gave us a lot of interesting running commentary.

The trip from Malaga to Granada was very pleasant. You can see the general route on the aerial view of this small part of southern Spain at left. We took expressway most of the way, except for the first part going through the city of Malaga itself, and the last part going up the hill to The Alhambra in Granada.

The bus stopped about halfway between the two cities to allow folks to rest for fifteen minutes or buy a drink or a souvenir.

The tour buses came out onto the pier area, of course, to pick up their passengers for the various different tours. Ours headed in towards the city, angling off along the shore to go up and around Parque de Malaga. The area along the beach was quite similar to Miami or Fort Lauderdale; have a look at my little movie below:

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Malaga seemed to have quite a few traffic circles with monuments or statues in them; just at the end of the beach part of the drive we encountered one at the east end of Parque de Malaga, and there was one at the western end as well. After passing the park, the bus wound through city streets to meet up with a broad avenue that ran along both sides of a dry canal heading north to meet up with the expressway. We got on the expressway and started climbing into the mountains that surround the city.

The first part of the trip, climbing through the mountains, was very pretty. Let's begin with a couple of movies:

(Mouseover Image if Video Controls Not Visible) Driving Through the Mountains

(Mouseover Image if Video Controls Not Visible) A Tunnel in the Mountains

Those movies might give you an idea of what the first part of the ride was like- very scenic. But really the entire ride all the way to Granada was very picturesque. Once through the mountains, we came out into relative flat land, as much as possible of which was given over to farming- mostly olive trees. Below are clickable thumbnails for some of the pictures we took from the bus along the way:

We came into Granada from the west, and turned south to go around the city. As soon as we got close to Granada, and especially as we were heading south on the expressway, we could see a high mountain range to the southeast of the city. Someone on the bus asked the driver what the snow-capped mountains were. As it turns out, they are the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Hearing this made us all ask what the words "sierra nevada" might mean in Spanish (since we have a same-named mountain range in California). It turns out that the words mean "snowfall mountain range," very appropriate for a mountain range that we were told is almost always snow-capped.

We turned to the northeast again on another spur expressway, and this brought us to the beginning of the road up to the Alhambra.

As we climbed the hill, we got some good views of the city of Granada off to our left and down the hill. At the top of the hill, we followed the signs to the entry to the complex that is The Alhambra.

Entering The Alhambra

Fortunately, we did not have to wait in line; our tour guide provided tickets for us, and we had already gotten a scheduled entry time.

We gathered outside the entry building to get our individual tickets and also a headphone and receiver. When you wear the headphones and carry the receiver, you can hear your own tour guide, but not any other guide, even if they happen to be quite close, because each guide has a transmitter on a special frequency. We found this same system in use three or four other times during our cruise.

We gathered around one of the bronze models of the complex and our tour guide gave us an orientation to what we would be doing and seeing. At the appointed time, we followed her over to the entry building and proceeded through the turnstiles.

Once inside, we followed our tour guide as we walked along, looking up at the Alhambra walls above us, and listening to her give us the background of this combination fortress/palace/summer home.

Our walk between the entry building and the point at which we actually entered the Alhambra through its wall took us along a tree‑shaded road and sidewalk below and outside the Alhambra wall. All along the wall there were towers- part of the original fortress- and we spent a good deal of time looking up at them. Here are clickable thumbnails for a few of the pictures we took of the Alhambra walls as we were walking along below them:

After about a half-mile, we actually entered the complex through the Alhambra walls.

The Alhambra: Orientation and The Plaza

Just inside the Alhambra walls we came into a plaza area. On our right was the obligatory gift shop, the Palance of Carlos V was in front of us, and the Alcazaba was off to our left. Here in the plaza there was a shaded sitting area and small garden and an overlook by the wall looking down onto one of the old gates.

Before we start our tour of the Alhambra complex, I want to offer you an aerial view of the entire area with the major elements we toured marked on it. It may help you piece together the elements of our visit today. If you will click on the button at left, this aerial view will appear in a scrollable popup window. The major items of interest are outlined in red, and our approximate route is marked by a yellow line. You can find our starting point in the plaza if you scroll to the right and down and look just south of the Palace of Carlos V. You can leave this window open as you follow us on our visit, and when we are done today and headed back to Malaga, you can close it.

Getting back to the plaza, we spent some time wandering about before heading off to the Palace of Carlos V. There are so many people that come to the Alhambra that not only is entry to the area scheduled, but entry to the Nazrid Palaces is also metered. Although we've entered the complex, we still have some time until our group can go into the Nazrid Palaces, which is why we were hanging about here for a while.

When we entered the plaza, we found ourselves up on the wall of the fortress, and over to our left there was an open area were we could look out over the valley to our south. I am not sure if they are original, or simply restored and transported here, but there was a row of cannon pointed out over the wall. At the left end of the wall was the tower above the Justice Gate. We were able to walk along the wall and look out over the valley; one point of interest was the Pepper Fountain, now non-functioning (the origin of the name is unknown).

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I made a movie from the wall looking out from the fortress of the Alhambra, and you can watch it with the player at left.

Across the plaza, behind the Palace of Carlos V was a building that we did not tour. It turns out to have been a Moorish building that was converted into a large chapel used by the royalty who inhabited the complex when control was wrested back from the Moors. Below are some clickable thumbnails for other views from the top of the Alhambra wall here in the plaza- including the Pepper Fountain down below the walls:

From the plaza, our group went around to the west entrance of the Palace of Carlos V, where we would have time to go inside before our scheduled entry into the Nazrid Palaces.

The Palace of Carlos V

The Palace of Charles V was built inside the Nasrid fortification of the Alhambra during the Renaissance. Its construction was commanded by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, who wished to establish his residence close to the Alhambra palaces. Although the Catholic Monarchs had already altered some rooms of the Alhambra after the conquest of the city in 1492, Charles V intended to construct a permanent residence befitting an emperor.

The project was given to Pedro Machuca, an architect whose biography and influences are poorly understood. At the time, Spanish architecture was immersed in the Plateresque style, still with traces of Gothic origin. Machuca built a palace corresponding stylistically to Mannerism, a mode still in its infancy in Italy. The exterior of the building uses a typically Renaissance combination of rustication on the lower level and ashlar on the upper. Even if accounts that place Machuca in the atelier of Michelangelo are accepted, at the time of the construction of the palace in 1527 the latter had yet to design the majority of his architectural works. Below are some clickable thumbnails for pictures of the palace exterior:

The palace is a 55 feet high, and over 200 feet square, and its main feature is an inner circular patio. This structure, the main Mannerist characteristic of the palace, has no precedent in Renaissance architecture, and places the building in the avant-garde of its time. The palace has two floors (not counting mezzanine floors). On the exterior, the lower is of a padded Tuscan order, while the upper is of the ionic order, alternating pilasters and pedimented windows. You can see the difference in the two levels here. Both main façades boast portals made of stone from the Sierra Elvira.

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We had a chance to go into the interior, circular courtyard.

This circular patio also has two levels. The lower consists of a doric colonnade of conglomerate stone, with an orthodox classical entablature formed of triglyphs and metopes- as you can see around one of the lower-level doorways here. The upper floor is formed by a stylized ionic colonnade whose entablature has no decoration. This organisation of the patio shows a deep knowledge of the architecture of the Roman Empire, and would be framed in pure Renaissance style but for its curved shape, which surprises the visitor entering from the main façades. The interior spaces and the staircases are also governed by the combination of square and circle. Similar aesthetic devices would be developed in the following decades under the classification of Mannerism.

I made two movies in this interior courtyard, and you can watch them with the players below:

(Mouseover Image if Video Controls Not Visible) Charles V Palace Courtyard

(Mouseover Image if Video Controls Not Visible) Courtyard Detail

Fred stitched a couple of pictures of the courtyard together in his camera to do a partial panorama, and a copy of it is below:

We both wandered around the courtyard for a few minutes before going back out front. I found a stairway to the second level, went up, and took some pictures of the courtyard from there (and some pictures of the stairway as well). There are clickable thumbnails below for some of these:

The Alcazaba

The Alhambra resembles many medieval Christian strongholds in its threefold arrangement as a castle, a palace and a residential annex for subordinates.

The alcazaba or citadel (also known as the red fort, due to the color of the rock that makes up its walls), the oldest part of the Alhambra, dates to the 1200s. It was built on the isolated and precipitous foreland which terminates the plateau on the northwest.

The fort was remodeled by the Moors, who added a very long outer wall in which they built the Nasrid Palaces. All that is left are the massive outer walls, towers and ramparts. On its watchtower, the Torre de la Vela, the flag of Ferdinand and Isabella was first raised, in token of the Spanish conquest of Granada in 1492. A turret containing a large bell was added in the 18th century and restored after being damaged by lightning in 1881.

There is a tour that you can take through these old ruins, but our shore excursion did not include it, so all we were able to do was to take some pictures of the Alcazaba (and the area to the northwest of the Alhambra) from the plaza in front of the Palace of Charles V. There are clickable thumbnails below for these pictures:

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Just before it was time for our group to enter the Nazrid Palaces, I made a movie from the plaza in front of the Palace of Carlos V, looking from the Alcazaba around to the northwest and the city of Granada on the hillsides nearby. You can watch this movie with the player at right.

Almost as soon as I finished the movie, our group was called for our turn through the Nazrid Palaces.

The Nazrid Palaces

The Alhambra itself was constructed during the mid-14th century by the Arab rules of the Emirate of Granada in al-Andalus, occupying the top of the hill of the Assabica on the southeastern border of Grandad. The Moorish palaces were built for the last Muslim Emirs in Spain and their court- the Nazrid Dynasty. The decorations within the palaces typified the remains of Moorish dominion within Spain and ushered in the last great period of Andalusian art in Granada. The Nasrids used freely all the stylistic elements that had been created and developed during eight centuries of Muslim rule in the Peninsula, including the Calliphal horseshoe arch, the grid of rhombuses, the Almoravid palm, and unique combinations of them>

To try to put here complete descriptions of all the rooms and gardens that we saw would take forever, so we will just move through one area after another, with perhaps a brief explanation of it. If you want more information on any of the areas, I encourage you to look them up; they are quite amazing.

The Machuca Court

This courtyard was named in honor of the architect of the Charles V Palace, Pedro de Machuca. The original construction had another portico in front of which is preserved and where we see cypress trees, there were some walls. From the courtyard there are great views of the Albaicín area of Granada.

We didn't actually go into the courtyard, but we could see it from the stairs leading down to the entry to the Nazrid palaces.

In going into the Nazrid palaces, we bypassed the Mexuar- the audience chamber. The Mexuar and the Oratory connected to it were rooms used for various purposes: the Mexuar for Counsel of Ministers meetings, and the Oratory for worship.

The Court of the Myrtles

The Court of the Myrtles (Patio de los Arrayanes) has received different names throughout time. Its current name is due to the myrtle bushes that surround the central pond and the bright green colour of which contrasts with the white marble of the patio.

This particular court was also called the "Patio of the Pond or the Reservoir" (Patio del Estanque o de la Alberca) because of the central pond, which is 100 feet long and 25 feet wide. The pond divides the patio and receives its water from two fountains (one at each end of the pond). The southern end of the court backs up to the Palace of Carlos V while the Hall of Ambassadors is at the northern end.

Below are clickable thumbnails for some views of the court and its decoration:

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Just after entering the courtyard, I stopped to make a movie panning around, and you can watch it with the player at right.

There are chambers on both sides of the patio and several porticoes on the shorter sides of it. These porticoes rest on columns with cubic capitals, which have seven semicircular arches decorated with fretwork rhombuses and inscriptions praising God. The central arch is greater than the other six and has solid scallops decorated with stylised vegetal forms and capitals of mocarabes.

The lateral sections were the women's residence, and on the ground floor several doors connect (or used to connect) with other chambers. The patio's decoration in this gallery, except for the tile skirting board, was redone during the 19th century, copying that of the opposite portico. Atop the Hall of the Ambassadors there is a parapet with two little lateral towers, which were remade in 1890 because this gallery's and the following hall's ceiling burned.

Below are clickable thumbnails for some of the other pictures we took in and around the Court of the Myrtles. The decorative elements were absolutely beautiful:

Hall of the Ambassadors

Just at the north end of the reflecting pool in the Court of the Myrtles is the most majestic hall of the palace, where the throne was and where official receptions took place- the Hall of the Ambassadors.

The Hall of the Ambassadors is square hall, about 37 feet on a side, and is 55 feet high. Its floor was once made out of marble, although it is now made of clay floor tiles, with the coat of arms of the Alamares made of glazed ceramic tiles from the 16th century. The walls of the hall are six feet thick, and have three arches each leading to three small rooms (including the anteroom) and twin balconies and windows above. The archway leading out to the Court of Myrtles is very richly carved and decorated, as you can see here.

The hall is completely covered by decorative inscriptions: niches, arches, walls and dressing rooms are all covered by poems in graceful Arabic script. These are all praises to God or the emir, the Nasrid's motto or texts from the Koran.

The central chamber is the most richly decorated of the palace. The hall is surrounded by a skirting board made of glazed pieces that form geometric figures, on top of which there is a very beautiful decoration of stylised vegetal forms, which covers the wall and is harmonically combined with geometric and vegetal elements. You can see these features here.

Below are some clickable thumbnails for pictures we took inside the hall, showing the decorative elements:

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I made a movie inside the Hall of the Ambassadors, and you can watch it with the player at right.

The ceiling is a representation of the Seven Heavens of the Islamic Paradise, and the dome is a wooden masterpiece of craftsmanship, formed by cedar wood decorations covered by interlacing patterns, decorated with stars and painted in such a way that they seem nacre, silver and ivory.

This layout was at the origin of the fresh atmosphere of the hall, as most of the space was in semidarkness. The layout also produced effects of great lighting concentrated on the throne.

When we came back out into the Court of the Myrtles, we went to the opposite end where a doorway led into the Palace of Charles V. Here, Fred was intrigued by the intricately‑carved sectioned door and tilework.

The Patio of the Lions

The Patio of the Lions (Patio de los Leones) is probably the most famous place within the Alhambra. The courtyard takes its name from the twelve lions that throw jets of water and which are part of the fountain in the middle of the patio. Sadly, there was some kind of renovation going on here, and, apparently, the lion sculptures and fountain had been or were going to be covered up to avoid damage; there was a protective wood enclosure aroung them. All this, of course, spoiled the beauty of the courtyard, so I have chosen to put a stock shot of the patio here, instead of one of the ones that we took.

The big dodecagon-shaped basin rests on top of these twelve lions that are around it. This white marble fountain is one of the most important examples of Muslim sculpture left in Spain. A poem by Ibn Zamrak was carved on the border of the basin. At the beginning of the 17th century another basin was added, but it is currently in the Garden of the Ramparts.

This patio was built by order of Mohammed V, its ground plan is rectangular and it is surrounded by a gallery in the style of a Christian cloister>. It does not follow the typical Muslim Andalusian patio style, like the Court of the Myrtles; the gallery is supported by 124 white marble columns with fine shafts, which are decorated on the exterior side with many rings and which support cubic capitals and big abacuses, decorated with inscriptions and stylised vegetal forms.

The gallery ceilings have inlaid wood panels of varying designs and, underneath, the intricately‑carved arches and columns are truly beautiful. Under the wood carving friezes there are plaster arches, except at the ends of the longer sides of the galleries; these are of mocarabes, with scallops decorated with rhombus-shaped carvings. At the middle of each of the two longer sides of the patio there is a semicircular arch bigger than the rest of the arches and with archivolts of mocarabes and scallops decorated with styled vegetal forms. These arches lead to the Hall of the Abencerrajes on the one side and the Hall of the Two Sisters on the other. The chambers where the sultan's wives lived are over these larger arches.

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At the middle of each of the shorter sides there is a pavilion, built on part of the patio. The pavilions' ground plan is square and they have domes with carved wooden interiors. Midway along the longer sides there are barrel‑vault ceilings with intricate plaster sculpting.

We had just entered the courtyard area from the Court of Myrtles, passing through some arched doorways and small rooms, when I stopped to make a movie of the activity here in the Court of the Twelve Lions. You can watch that movie with the player at right.

In the centre of the patio there was a low garden and the galleries' floor is made out of white marble. The garden went through many alterations over the years and it has now been eliminated in order to avoid the dampness it may cause. There are white marble channels, which start inside the pavilions and inside the halls of the two other sides and which get together at the central fountain forming a cross. On the ends of the channels there are jets that send water to the central fountain.

The Patio of the Twelve Lions was the prettiest thing I think I'd seen so far here at the Alhambra; it certainly deserves its reputation. Even with all the work going on, the beauty of the patio, with its graceful columns, intricate ceilings and setting between two major halls, could not be hidden. Below are clickable thumbnails for some of the best of the pictures we took in and around the courtyard:

Hall of the Two Sisters

From the Patio of the Lions, we went through a archway on the north side of the courtyard into the Hall of the Two Sisters. The Hall did not receive its name because of a legend or an event that took place in it, as many tend to believe. The hall was so-called because of two big twin marble flagstones that are part of the floor.

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To get you oriented, you should probably use the player at left to take a look at a movie I made of this hall after we'd come through the archway from the patio (which you will see a ways into the movie). And although you will get a glimpse of the flagstones towards the end of the movie, you'll note that I mistakenly thought that there had been two statues in this room, giving it its name.

This hall, built by order of Mohammed V, was in the centre of a series of chambers where the sultana and her family lived. It is square, and has interlacing ceilings and bedchambers connected with the Emperor's Chambers (Habitaciones de Carlos V) and, through a balcony, with the Gardens of the Partal (Jardines del Partal).

Visitors may access the hall through a semicircular festooned arch, where the original wooden doors are still preserved. A passageway leads to the high chambers, with ceilings carved in the 16th century. Three little arches, with mocarabes on the lateral arches and arch scallops on the central arch, lead to the mirador's chamber. You can see the Patio of the Lions from there.

The hall's paving is made of marble and has a small fountain with a jet and a little channel that carries the water to the Patio of the Lions (which you may have noticed me mistakenly identify in my movie). The most impressing element of the hall is the beautiful and perfect dome of mocarabes (shown at right). Its lighting was carefully considered and it receives the light from lateral little windows. The dome is therefore like a beautiful and flower. Ibn Zamrak wrote a poem about this dome and some of its verses are reproduced on a tile skirting board that has metallic iridescence. The hall's walls are covered with extremely fine plasterwork on different themes, such as the classical Nasrid motto "Only God is Victor" or the symbolic pair of closed hands.

Below are clickable thumbnails for some additional pictures we took here in the Hall of the Two Sisters:

On a level up from the main floor of the Two Sisters Chamber is the balcony that leads to the Partal Gardens, and which also runs around an interior courtyard to the north to a building known as the Queen's Dressing Room. (Whether that was the only purpose to which it was put I have no idea.) At ground level, between the two, is the Garden of the Two Sisters. It was certainly a green, shady oasis here amidst the palaces, and I can only imagine that the residents spent a good deal of time wandering through it or enjoying its fountain. You can see another good view of the garden, taken from the balcony outside the Two Sisters Chamber, here.

We are almost done with our tour through the Nazrid Palaces. From the balcony overlooking the Garden of the Two Sisters, we followed the balcony around to the west, through a second-level walkway with wonderful views of the area of Granada north of the Alhambra on the one side (there are clickable thumbnails at left for a couple of the best of these views), and another small interior patio with fountain on the other, and then down some stairs to ground level again.

Here, we found a carved inscription high on one of the walls that mentioned the author, Washington Irving. Greg was not along to translate from the Spanish, but since our trip there I have learned the meaning of the words. The author wrote his Tales of the Alhambra, a collection of essays, verbal sketches and stories here in 1829. Irving had been in Madrid in 1828 and he subsequently traveled to Granada, which he described as "a most picturesque and beautiful city, situated in one of the loveliest landscapes that I have ever seen." He asked the then-governor of the historic Alhambra Palace as well as the archbishop of Granada for access to the palace, which was granted, and he was inspired by what he saw to write his Tales- although he did not believe his writing would ever do it justice. The inscription we saw actually reads: "Washington Irving wrote his Tales of Alhambra in these rooms in 1829".

Doubling back to the east brought us to one of the covered galleries beside the Garden of the Two Sisters. Immediately on coming into the Garden, I made a movie of it, showing where the balcony was where we had taken pictures of it from above a few minutes earlier. Then, as I walked to the east along the northern gallery, I made another movie, ending with a view of the Torre de las Damas (Ladies' Tower) just east of us along the Alhambra Wall. You can watch both of these movies with the players below:

(Mouseover Image if Video Controls Not Visible) The Garden of the Two Sisters

(Mouseover Image if Video Controls Not Visible) Walking Towards the Partal Gardens

At the end of the second movie, you can see the lowest level of the Partal Gardens, our next point of interest.

The Partal Gardens

After we passed through the Garden of the Two Sisters, we went through another archway and found ourselves outside in a small courtyard. We had been on the lowest level between the Court of the Two Sisters and the Queen's Dressing Room, and so when we came out into the courtyard we had to ascend a flight of steps to put us back up on the level of the gardens. When we got to the top, we had a very good view of the northern wall of the Alhambra and the Torre des Damas. We had a good view back towards the Court of the Two Sisters as we followed the walkway eastward past the sculpted hedges and up some additional steps to the northwest corner of the Partal Gardens.

Our route is taking us from the bottom of the gardens up to the architectural structure for which the location is named: the Partal Palace portico. The Partal Gardens were only included in the Alhambra a little more than a century ago. Up until 1891, the Partal was privately-owned, and not much more than a simple house with a few plants. Its interior walls were covered over so that much of the structure and its original decoration were hidden from view. The owner donated it to the State that year, and it was included in the Alhambra complex.

Today, the beautifully-landscaped gardens stretch from the Torre des Damas up a series of steps to the Royal Chapel. There are some water features and a pool just below the portico. At the portico, the path turns right and goes to the back of the Palace of Charles V where one exits the gardens, turning left to return to the plaza adjacent to the Alhambra's south wall- the point where we began our tour a while ago.

I lost track of Fred for a short while because I hung back to take some pictures in the lower part of the garden, and we ended up taking different routes through the gardens, although we did meet up with each other and with our tour guide in the plaza. For his part, Fred paid special attention to the roses growing at various places in the gardens; they are a special interest of his. Walking up through the gardens, we each took quite a few pictures; here are clickable thumbnails for five of the best of these:

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For my part, I made a movie as I walked up the central steps in the gardens; you can follow along with me using the player at right. And below are some clickable thumbnails for additional views of the Partal Gardens:

Although it isn't really part of our walk through the Partal Gardens, I am going to continue this section to cover our walk from the Alhambra to the Generalife. After our tour guide gave us a while to relax in the plaza, visit the shop and have a drink, she led us off eastward- back towards the main entry, but this time still inside the Alhambra walls. You can see our approximate route on the aerial view if you still have it open. If you don't, you can open it again by clicking here.

From the southeast corner of the Palace of Charles V we walked slightly southeast along a wide walkway. At the gardens of the hotel Parador de San Francisco (a boutique hotel, very upscale, inside the Alhambra complex) we turned right on the walkway that paralleled the south wall of the Alhambra. Off to our right, there were two areas that seemed as if they were being unearthed or restored. They were not marked on our guidebook, nor did our guide have much to say about them, so I am not sure what kind of buildings they were. But you can see one of these areas in the picture at left, and the other one here.

Then the walkway curved around to the northeast and passed through probably the most interesting sculpted trees that I have seen yet- even more interesting than those in Parque Genoves in Cadiz.

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The trees, Fred tells me, were a kind of cypress and they lined both sides of the walkway. Over the years they had been trimmed into a series of arches- shorter at the eastern end and much taller at the end near the Parador de San Francisco. The arches were like windows through which you could get views on either side, and there was one of these windows every ten feet or so along the walkway, which I estmate to have been a couple hundred feet long. Here is Fred at one of the windows.

I made a movie as we were walking through the cypress corridor, and you should have a look at it using the player at right. Adding to the beauty of the walk was the fact that since we were walking eastward, we could see, way off in the distance, the Sierra Nevada Mountains; they were much prettier from this vantage point than they had been from the bus ride into Granada. And off to our right as we curved around was the southern wall of the Alhambra, and we could see some of the towers that were built every short distance along the wall. In one picture, I captured three of these towers- from foreground to background they were the Tower of Heads, the Witches' Tower and the Captain's Tower.

This short part of our walk was really, really pretty, with the views out across the Alhambra walls on our right side and the views of the gardens of the Parador de San Francisco and some other ruins on our left. Below are clickable thumbnails for some of the many pictures of these features that we took along the cypress corridor:

The cypress corridor ended and the path continued on around the southeast end of the Alhambra and eventually came to a gate that led through the wall of the Alhambra and out to the entrance to the Generalife. On either side of this gate were two towers. On the north was the Tower at the End of the Racetrack (the ruined tower in the foreground right). It was actually named for being at the end (or beginning) of the main street of the Alhambra. It had been restored by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1502, as it was damaged when the Moors were driven out. Sadly, it was almost completely destroyed by Napoleon's troops in 1812 they left Granada, and so all that is left are some ruins (that's why it's hard to see on the aerial view).

The Water Tower

The tower on the right, The Water Tower, was in much better shape. This tower is the easternmost of the Alhambra fortification. It got its name because it is next to the aqueduct that carried water to the Alhambra Generalife. The tower was defensive and also helped protect the Royal Canal- which carried the water distributed throughout the Alhambra. This water came from the river Darro and through an infrastructure of pools, cisterns and wells to supply the entire population of the Alhambra and the surrounding district.

If you look at the outside of the tower you can see the amazing stonework of the tower, and you can see one of the cisterns as well. And when we passed through the gate and out of the Alhambra itself, we could see the old aqueduct entering the Water Tower from the east.

Below are clickable thumbnails for three more pictures of the Water Tower:

This brought our visit to the actual Alhambra to an end. When our group had all gathered together, the guide told everyone that the tour would continue through the Generalife, but that there was a fair amount of walking involved and, as the day had grown quite warm, if anyone wanted to wait where we were, under some shady trees, the tour would be returning past this same point to head off to lunch at a nearby hotel. I guess maybe a quarter of the group decided to skip the Generalife, but after a short rest, the rest of us, led by our guide, headed off to the northwest to visit it.

The Generalife

The Palacio de Generalife (in Arabic, literally, "Architect's Garden") was the summer palace and country estate of the Nasrid Emirs (Kings) of the Emirate of Granada in Al-Andalus. It is located actually just to the northeast of the Alhambra itself so, at times, the Emirs did not have far to go to get away from it all. We were never at a vantage point where we could get a good picture of the entire complex, and so below is a stock shot of it, taken from, I calculate, the Torre das Damas in the Alhambra. It may be that we could have gone into that tower, but our tour guide didn't take us there.

The Generalife Palace

The palace and gardens were built during the reign of Muhammad III (1302–1309) and redecorated shortly after by Abu I-Walid Isma'il (1313–1324). After the reconquest of the area in 1492, the Catholic Monarchs assigned a keeper to watch over the Generalife and make improvements. In 1631 the keeper’s charge was given to the Granada-Venegas family, who took care of the palace and grounds for over two centuries. Complications eventually ensued, adn there was a long, drawn-out legal battle between family members. In 1921 the Spanish State was finally awarded custody of the premises. The Generalife became part of the Alhambra complex shortly thereafter.

There are four main parts to the Generalife- the palace itself, the adjacent Patio de la Acequia (Court of the Water Channel or Water-Garden Courtyard), the Jardín de la Sultana (Sultana's Garden or Courtyard of the Cypress) located between the Generalife and the Alhambra and the New Garden, an extensive Moorish garden that was built more recently southeast of the palace. Our tour did not go into the actual rooms of the palace, but we did first walk along the entry path where we could see the Sultana's Garden. Then we meandered through the New Garden and finally entered the palace itself to see the Water Garden Courtyard.

Sultana's Garden (Courtyard of the Cypress)

The first gardens that were built as part of the summer palace lay between the Generalife and the Alhambra walls, just west of the palaces themselves.

The Courtyard of the Cypress

The first gardens that were put in the narrow, shallow valley between the Generalife and the Alhambra were actually vegetable gardens. Since the Generalife was a place of rest and relaxation, it was apparently thought that tending small crops would enhance that feeling. Later, ornamental gardens were added, including an amazing stand of cypress trees; these were later sculpted into the trees we see today.

The vegetables have also pretty much been replaced by more ornamental, but relatively informal garden varieties, and now the area between the two places has a wide variety of plants. Now, the Generalife has amazing views of the Alhambra, and vice versa.

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I made a movie of the view out towards the Alhambra from the walkway above the Court of the Cypress, and you can watch it with the player at right.

Originally the palace was linked to the Alhambra by a covered walkway across the ravine that now divides them; this made it easy for court personnel to still have contact with the Emir who was supposedly getting away from it all. No rest for the wicked, I suppose. The Court of the Cypress here at the Generalife is one of the oldest surviving Moorish gardens.

We took a good many more pictures of the older gardens here at the Generalife, and there are clickable thumbnails for the best of them below:

The New Garden

We had gotten the previous views of the Court of the Cypress from the long walkway that runs between those gardens and the rest of the Generalife. To get to the New Garden, we just walked a bit further down the walkway and up to the right.

After the Generalife was definitively attached to the Alhambra, public opinion was mustered to build a public park. The area between the Alhambra and the Generalife Palace, the original Sultana's Garden, was built up and landscaped gardens were added in the valley below the palace. In the area southeast of the original palace buildings, the New Garden (Jardines Nuevos) was established.

By 1931 a section resembling a labyrinth garden, with arched rose gardens and cypress trees, was finished near the building; it carried through the design elements that had already been used in the original gardens.

In 1951 the section was extended in accordance with the architect Prieto Moreno’s design for a Muslim-style garden, with an irrigation channel, walkways, cypress‑lined walls, a pergola and a view of both the Alhambra and the city. The walkways are paved in traditional Granadian style with a mosaic of pebbles: white ones from the River Darro and black ones from the River Genil.

I made a couple of movies as we walked through the New Garden, and you can have a look at them with the players below:

(Mouseover Image if Video Controls Not Visible) Walking Through the New Garden

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It goes without saying that the New Garden was very nice, and we took a great many pictures. There are clickable thumbnails for six of the best ones below:

The Water Garden Courtyard

From the New Garden, our tour went on into the palace itself. We walked from the garden area through an archway into a smaller courtyard. Ahead of us was the tower at the southwest corner of the palace structure. The tour took us up some outside steps and into the tower. Just before going through that doorway, we could look to the north along the side of the palace building which, at this point is a few stories high- and we are just above the level of the garden. To get up to the level of the Water Garden Courtyard, which is the center of the structure, we had to climb two stories of interior stairs. We came out at the south end of the courtyard looking at the main building of the palace on the north end.

The Water Garden Courtyard

The palace complex is basically a large rectangular structure, with the main building at the north, long galleries rooms on the east side, a long colonnade stretching along the west side and, on the south end, an open building for views of the New Garden on the short south side.

In the interior is the Water Garden Courtyard- a long pool framed by the sides of the structure and containing flowerbeds and fountains. It is considered the best example of the medieval Persian garden style in Andalusia.

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When we got to the courtyard, I made a movie of it. You won't see much in addition to the pictures above, but sometimes when there is a fountain or a water feature, it can add something to the scene, so you might want to give the movie a look with the player at right.

Below are clickable thumbnails for a couple of additional pictures we took in the Water Garden Courtyard:

When we left the Water Garden Courtyard, we went a different way, down the east side of the New Garden. At the end of the garden, on our right, is an outdoor amphitheatre that was built in 1952 for the Granada International Festival of Music and Dance, which as been held there ever since. So the Generalife is now a mixture of the old and the new, but in all the areas, save possibly for the new theatre, the gardens and buildings are as they might have been had they all been constructed in the in the first third of the millenium.

The Generalife, along with the Alhambra palace and gardens, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This designation is relatively new, and it makes me wonder how many others I might have visited. I know for a fact that we will visit many more of them in the next three weeks.

This brought our visit to the Alhambra to an end. Now it was off to lunch and then back to the ship.

Lunch and Our Return to the Noordam

We returned to the spot where some of our tour group were waiting for us, counted noses and then headed off. On this particular shore excursion, a lunch was being provided, so the first order of business was for our tour group to walk back to the Alhambra entry and then to the nearby hotel where lunch would be set out for us.

(Mouseover Image if Video Controls Not Visible) Lunch After the Alhambra

From the Generalife, we headed down the walkway towards the entrance. We first walked underneath a hundred feet or so of oleander that had been trained to form a green archway. At the end of that tunnel of oleander, we could again see the Sultana's Garden off to our right. Then the walkway continued through a corridor of cryptomeria- tall evergreens that grow at many places we've visited and that I saw frequently in northern Japan many years ago. The end of this walkway brought us back to our starting point for the Alhambra tour.

We walked back through bus circle where we'd been dropped off early this morning, and I couldn't resist a snapshot of a group of schoolkids who were waiting there with a couple of adults for their own transportation. Our tour guide directed us up the local street that runs beside the south side of the Alhambra towards the Hotel Alixares, which would be the location for our lunch. When we got inside the hotel and its downstairs dining room, we found a lunch buffet set out for us. Other tours from the same company were also having lunch here; we were one of the last groups to arrive. Wegot something to eat and found a table with a couple we'd seen walking along in our group. Towards the end of our meal there turned out to be some entertainment, and this prompted me to make a movie. You can watch it with the player at left.

We were all back at the bus loading area well in advance of our own bus's arrival; there were lots of other tours coming and going so the area was crowded. When we were all aboard and noses counted once again, we were off back to Malaga.

(Mouseover Image if Video Controls Not Visible) Through the Highway Tunnel

As we came down the mountainside from the Alhambra, we got a really good view of the Sierra Nevada Mountains off in the distance; from this height the view across the valley was really beautiful. At the bottom of the hill, we turned to the south to go through the same highway tunnel that we'd come through this morning. Going in this direction the tunnel was considerably longer, and I couldn't resist making a movie as we went through it. (It's your basic "going through a tunnel movie" so I won't be insulted if you skip it- particularly if you have already watched one or more of the plethora of such movies throughout my photo album- particularly the four-minute movie of our transit of the Eisenhower Tunnel in Colorado.)

When we got back to the expressway that lead north and west around Granada, Fred could also not resist taking a picture of some unusual light stanchions of a design we'd never seen before. But getting around to the expressway back to Malaga didn't reveal much else of note.

We also saw much the same scenery as we did this morning, of course, since we were on the same highway. In the bright afternoon sunlight, though, I was rather more struck by how much some of the passing scenery looked a bit like West Texas- the same kind of topography only very much greener. We were both snapping away on the return trip (punctuated by another rest stop); while few of my pictures were very interesting, some of Fred's were, and there are clickable thumbnails below for them:

For the last hour or so of the trip, our guide kept up a running commentary about the countryside and some of the history of Malaga. Most of the history went in one ear and out the other, but I was surprised to find out how many movies that I thought had been filmed elsewhere were actually filmed around Malaga or just a bit north of it. For example, where do you think Clint Eastwood's "spaghetti Westerns" were filmed? Italy? Nope, here in Spain about fifteen miles northwest of Malaga. Why they don't call them "tapas Westerns" I don't know.

Each of us took quite a few pictures on the way through Malaga and back to the ship, but many of them duplicated scenes we'd photographed this morning. Still, we did find some things of note, and there are clickable thumbnails below for the pictures we took going through Malaga and getting back on board the Noordam. In my pictures, for example, (first row below) we passed what looked like a playground but that had what appeared to be a topographical model of someplace- complete with snow-covered mountains. You can also see that the river channel is dry most of the way into town, but close in there is enough water to fill it from the ocean.

We were back on board just a half-hour or so before the ship sailed.

Setting Sail/Evening Activities

Just about 5:45, the ship began to pull away from the dock, and we were out on our balcony to watch. I tried my hand at another panorama mash-up by taking four pictures and combining them together. Here is my resulting panorama of Malaga- its harbor and coastline:

After we'd moved out a ways, the pilot boat came alongside to pick up the pilot and send us on our way.

We had our gym session and then dinner in the dining room this evening. After that, Fred and I went to the Vista Lounge to watch comedian Marty Brill who, apparently, is trying to parlay his TV comedy writing career into stand-up comedy. In that effort he is being, I think, only moderately successful.

This Evening's Towel Animal  

Got a Guess?

This evening's "towel animal" reminded me of something, but we could never agree on what that might have been, so your guess is as good as mine.

You can use the links below to continue to the album page for different day.

	May 15, 2012: Cartagena, Spain
	May 13, 2012: Cadiz, Spain
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