Granada

This was a loooong travel day.  I left DC at 10 at night and arrived in London at 10 in the morning with just over an hour to make my connection to Madrid.  Although the passport control line was very long, they have a special one for people with connections of an hour or less.  What a concept.  I made it to the departure terminal before they even had posted the gate assignment.  Piece of cake.  I had bought a separate ticket to Granada from Madrid with a three hour layover in case there was a problem.  I thought the price of the ticket was pretty cheap, only about $50.  But when I went to print out my boarding pass, they charged me $35 for my luggage.  Not such a deal.  I have a flight from Madrid to Fez next week on Ryanair that cost $24 for me and $35 for my suitcase.  It is a bizarre world.  Anyway, I got to Granada and into my apartment by 9:30 that night.  It was a loooong day.

The next morning I took a walking tour of the sights of central Granada.  Isabella and Ferdinand treated Granada as their home and met with Columbus here.  Obviously, the most famous site in Granada is the Alhambra, but everything else is Isabella, Ferdinand, and those incredible Christians who defeated the Moors finally in 1492 in Granada, the final holdout.  It was a big year for Ferdinand and Isabella; they helped Columbus discover the Caribbean, they ended the two century war with the Moors, and they expelled the Jews.  Go, Christians.

Ok, I'll just say this just once, now.  Every guide in Spain proudly shows off the Juderia, the Jewish quarter, of his city.  Every guide in Spain tells proudly how three religions lived side by side in peace.  I heard this the first time several years ago in Toledo, the "City of Three Religions."  It is a crock.  The Christians fought the Moors for two centuries over the entire southern half of the country before finally getting rid of them.  During that same time period, they persecuted the Jews.  The Crusaders brought the Holy War to Toledo in 1210 (yep, three religions living together in peace).  In 1391 an anti-Jewish mob killed 4,000 Jews in Seville.  A wave of violence spread across the country.  Over 2,000 Jews were murdered in Cordoba.  The first auto da fe (burning at the stake as a test of faith) took place in Seville in 1481.

I am going to enjoy my time in Andalusia (southern Spain), but the only historical sites to visit are leftovers from the Moors or massive and expensive monuments to all those santos and santas and those glorious Catholic rulers.  I'll try to keep my attitude in check and stick to my Spanish lessons.

Back to Granada.  I visited the Alhambra on my first afternoon and it is incredible.  The style is ornate yet peaceful.  I read about stalactite ceilings before I came and didn't know what they were.  They drop down to create a 3-D composition.  It is all amazing.  The rulers took it over for a few centuries and then let it go into disrepair.  (I'm not going to comment on how those Christians couldn't even maintain someone else's perfection.  Not going to do it.)  But it got restored and it is incredible.











I just can't do this justice with pictures.

Granada was a nice enough city to walk around in with narrow lanes and interesting architecture, but once I had seen the Alhambra, I was ready to move on.