in the presence of the Alhambra

Alhambra. We are within a stone’s throw and everything around us reverberates its presence.

Alhambra, peeking through. Beyond the rooftops.





Alhambra souvenirs, Alhambra beer on nearly every menu in town.

People congregate in choice spots, where they can get a good view of it. Ah, yes, here to see the great Alhambra. You too? Yes...


We have a reservation to enter the Alhambra on Thursday, so today, we merely play the waiting game. It isn’t hard in Granada.

We start off with breakfast at the guest house...





– a lovely affair. Ed eats six oranges. He’s quite smitten with the ones that are like clementines only twice the size. Breakfast done with, we set out for a Granada ramble.

This means that we head downhill, toward the downtown and center of the city.






Down, all the way down from our Albaicín hill.











And now it feels like we’re in a city. No more narrow alleys with white houses. Granada bustles.

We turn toward the cathedral and it is supposed to be a magnificent cathedral – commissioned by the ever commissioning Queen Isabella of the fifteenth century and I know you’ll find this to be a bit odd on my part (I’m generally avoid taking a principled position on how things should be done) but I was taken aback by the not insignificant entrance fee. Shouldn’t cathedrals be free? On the other hand, I’m not here to pray. But what if I was? In any case, I hesitate. Ed is indifferent to cathedrals, regardless of their great artistic merit and so in the end, we postpone a visit until the next day.

We do go to the side chapel – the Royal Chapel, and there, too, you have to pay a separate fee and I think that this is understandable as it isn’t really a house of prayer – more like a house of burial. Both Queen Isabella and Ferdinand are encrypted here and, among other things, you get the pleasure of looking at their tombs.

It is an ornate and interesting place, made more so by the descriptive brochure that you can pick up with your ticket (10 cents extra; we splurged). We read that this chapel should be of special interest to (among others) Americans (us!) as it memorializes the king and queen who were so 'adept' at 'spreading Spanish culture to the Americas.' (No photos allowed. Too bad.)


Outside again, we walk through the Plaza de Bibarrambla, where, as in Madrid, you cannot really get a sense of the vast and pretty square, as the Christmas booths still have a presence. (No photos taken. Too commercially cluttered at the moment.)

More shops, including ones that are sort of pseudo Moroccan (in that they are like those in Morocco except not fully so)...


 


...more gazing this way and that until I think that we have our fill of downtown for now and so we turn around and head back up to the Arab Quarter. Our Arab Quarter.





It’s early afternoon. Like the mother that I am, I know what would be good for us: a hike. A climb. A walk without an obvious end. Motion, in the quiet of vast open spaces.

If you take the road that runs at the summit of the Albaicín and you follow it to the Sacromonte – where many of the homes are built right into the contours of the rocky hills – then you can have yourself a very pleasant hike.






And at all points, you can look over your shoulder and see the Alhambra.






Here, Granada is no longer a city. There are houses along the road, but if you stray from it, you find yourself in the dry and desolate hills that go on forever to the north, to the east and west.





This is the place where Flamenco is studied and practiced. We hear bits of music coming from one café and there are signs advertising night performances.

As we turn away from the main road and follow the more quiet alleys, we find that this is, too, the place for cats.
















Skittish cats who will have none of Ed’s friendly advances.






We take the dirt road up a hill just outside of Granada – toward the somber and somewhat crumbling abbey (Abadia de Sacromonte), closed now, even as we see a boy ride his horse through the gates, then practice some sidesteps in the dusty garden of the Abadia.






We’re not done hiking yet. There is a path that goes up the next mountain and we take that, up, up all the way up for magnificent views of the snowcapped Sierra, the gentle mist (Ed tells me it's likely to be, at least in part, smoke from wood burning stoves) forming in the low lying areas...






...and, of course, the Alhambra, now regarded from above.






We sit on a rock, a bench of sorts I guess and I lean on Ed and let myself go limp in the warm sunshine. (And I think, this would make for a nice photo... so I perch the camera on a rock and set the timer...)






Granada is a good five degrees chillier than Seville (the afternoon highs have been around 55 degrees and at night it gets down to the mid thirties), but here, on the summit, I feel as warm as if I were there on a summer day.

The views are stunning and we spend some time there, enjoying the quiet, the solitude.


It’s a steep descent and we take our time with it, but eventually we are back on the road and then back in the Albaicín, on the square next to our hotel, where I’m ready for an early evening lunch of an asparagus and shrimp scrambled egg dish, delivered by the ever friendly café owner and his wife – who proudly converted an old house into what appears to be a successful business. Ah, location!





And now the sun is down. This is when I take out my computer at the guest house and sit by their fireplace and review the day behind us and the day in front of us (while Ed plays with his circuit board in the little room with the big fluffy pillows on the bed).

By 9:30 we’re ready for dinner. On our morning walk, we had passed a restaurant tucked into the thicket of the alleys of the Arab Quarter and subsequently, I read that the Basque food there is quite respectable and so we weave through the dark alleys now to find the place again and we’re greeted by a very friendly waiter who is, I guess, happy to see us as we are the only diners that night. (Sigh... location.)

We hesitate in ordering, but the waiter definitely has his favorites and so we end up with a warmed spinach salad and some cheese leek concoction and rice with clams and artichokes and it’s all very delicious and we linger, but only a short while since we know that once we’re gone, everyone gets to go home.





Home. Right now it’s Granada. A little room in the old Arab Quarter. If we scaled the roof, we’d be in the presence of the Alhambra.

Granada

There’s a dispute taking place in Spain as we speak: which treasure gets more visitors per year – the Prado in Madrid, or the Alhambra in Granada? I think it’s a silly squabble since the Prado, as we well know, opens its doors to anyone and everyone five evenings out of the week, whereas you can’t even buy your way into the Alhambra if you haven’t prereserved your slot in advance. I knew it was hard to visit in the tourist filled summer months, but the other day, while idling on the computer, I decided to check out the reservation system for the Alhambra and found, to my horror, that on two of the three days we are to be in Granada, all tickets to this castle-palace-fortress are already sold out. In January. So, in my opinion, the Alhambra wins, at least the desirability pagent. And, too, I read some ten years back that the monument is so fragile right now, that future generations may not be able to see it in the way that we can admire it today. We are the tail end, the last bulldozers who know how to take a good thing and wear it down for our great-grandchildren. Sigh...


Granada is smaller than Seville. One third the size, but you couldn’t tell. It feels big. And here’s another statistic – it’s only 150 miles from Seville, but the train ride takes a full three hours. It’s a local train, a lovely little thing, with big windows and pleasant views onto...you guessed it, olive groves.





At the Granada train station, I push for getting tickets for our remaining train rides. We have a wonderfully helpful agent who gives Ed a senior discount and jovially walks us through our various connections. Okay, we’re done. And then I notice that my small satchel – where I carry my computer and a few papers and books is missing. Damn! What idiot these days leaves her bag at the side of the room (never mind that the room is empty) for anyone to grab? I fly out looking in all directions, but of course, anyone taking a bag is not going to linger so that I may catch up with them. Stupid, stupid me.

The commotion causes the police officer to emerge. He looks at me pityingly and thinks ‘dumb tourist’ thoughts I’m sure, especially since he had been in the room, noticed the abandoned bag and removed it promptly.

I am very happy to get my computer back. Ed refrains from commenting on the entire episode and my role in it, which is a good thing.


As we walk from the train station to the Albayzín – the old Arab quarter – I think how different the vibe is here, in Granada. Seville is orange. Or at least it seems that way, possibly because there are orange trees everywhere. Granada is white in the old quarter and not any one color elsewhere. And here’s the big difference. I notice it right away when we walk the grand boulevard cutting through the city:





Granada is at the edge of the Sierra Nevada range. Granada is hilly.

Anyone who has traveled here will tell you that really, there are two hills to take note of: the one of the Albayzín and the other of the great Alhambra.

So naturally we get lost. We move like the dazed travelers that we are, looking at street names, wondering why none of them are what they ought to be.

We are with our backpacks of course and I note another interesting small detail: Granada draws backpackers, ones who seem to be of another era – the sixties maybe? – much more so than Seville did. In a square several blocks from our tiny hotel (we do find it eventually, of course we do, getting lost in this world for long is not so easy anymore), they congregate and bring out guitars and drums and in my mind they are stuck here in Granada, probably to escape the dreary wetness of Amsterdam, or pausing for the one last breath of a familiar continent on the way to Marrakech. It feels almost nostalgic to see them here, with their matted hair and young smiles, wrapped in layers of wool, but with bare feet. Just because.


A word on our small guest house, the Santa Isabel la Real: it’s beautiful. It may well be the gem of our travels through Andalucía. On the outside – plain and white. On the inside – a terrific little open courtyard...





...and rooms filled with antiques and art, collected by the family who owns and operates the place.





The line I’ve used – it’s cheaper than the Econolodge in Escanaba – applies here as well, even though Granada is known to be pricey. We booked the most basic room and it’s 105 E, including full breakfast, WiFi, taxes, and swigs of a delicious homemade orange liquor, made by the matriarch behind the place.

We didn’t do much this first afternoon in Granada. Oh, well, I take that back. We idled on the square around the corner from the hotel.





And then we walked up toward the back, from where we saw the first real glimpse of the reason why we’re here. There, in the distance, the Alhambra.





Oh, and, too, we strolled (nostalgically) around the hippie square and watched the great hippie bust, as a van of police officers pulled up and made a sweep of the place – not really throwing anyone out, but, making sure that any musician ws properly registered to play outdoors (a new law in Granada requires this, to keep the free music down to a dull roar, especially in the summer) and that all cigarettes of dubious legality were snuffed out.

Finally, let me end this post as we ended the day – at the tiny eatery just a few paces from us – El Ají. We come late and leave even later (last ones out at midnight) and I think we’ve succumbed to the mysticism of this strangely romantic and eerily beautiful place where nothing is ordinary, nothing is quite like you had imagined it to be.

Alejandra of Seville and other treasures

It’s Monday, nearly eleven and we are finally done with supper. That’s a tad late for us, but I’d been engrossed in deleting hundreds of old photos that I had sloppily left on the computer, leading to the unfortunate situation of a maxed out hard drive, so we got a late start.

We'd eaten pizza. A cheat, I know, because so far as I know, pizza is not Andalusian, not even Spanish, but it was a delicious neighborhood pizza, one you had to wait for, as the place was crowded even at that hour, or perhaps especially at that hour.


 


As always, at the eatery I take a good long look at those around us. I’m especially drawn to the two couples who come in shortly after us. One has a little girl and they put her at the end of the table, give her an iPhone (or some comparable) and then proceed to discuss with each other the state of the world and their lives in it. The girl happily plays with the iPhone and only every few minutes asks some question or other of her mother.

As in France, kids here know what is expected of them when they go out to eat with their families. The meal includes them (even at this late hour), but it isn't about them. Still, I’m impressed enough by this little one that I go up to say a few niceties to the parents. Of course, the mom’s pleased and proud and as she looks into the smiling eyes of her daughter, prodding her to answer for herself the question about her age, the girl tilts her head with a laugh and tells me that she is Alejandra and she is, in fact, three.

She then returns to the iPhone and continues her doodles. I’m amused. Obviously, in postwar Poland, my thumbs would not have known to skirt around a tiny screen, but it’s also true that my own kids never touched a tiny screen or even a big screen with thumbs, or with any other fingers. The whirlygig of time...


But what time does not seem to ever dismantle is the pleasure of eating out and especially outside, even on a January day in Seville, where you need your jacket and a scarf, but having that, you can find a table outdoors and you can stay there the whole afternoon long, talking, eating, eating, talking. As Ed and I walk back from our third and final sight for this day and for Seville in fact, as we’re leaving Tuesday, we pass square after square absolutely packed with people engaged in eating, drinking and talking, talking, so boisterously that the city almost rumbles with their collective voice.

Ed comments – they beat France in this (their devotion to the café-restaurant life) and that’s saying a lot.

If the economy is faltering, it’s surely not making a dent in this one passion that survives all others.


I noted that we are walking from our third sight. There should have been four on this day, but one of them – a local market – was a bust. Lonely Planet needs to do an update there.

The other three? The first was interesting but I cut out early in the tour. Ed sat out altogether. The second was probably in the top handful of sights I have seen in my life. The third was a gentle and tamer version, worth the hike, but my eyes were still glazed over by number two.


So, now let me go back to the beginning of the day, when we sit down to an orange juice and a sweet Bandas de Hoja with coffee (for me; Ed’s still groaning over being full of some past meal or other and so he sticks with juice) at a nearby café. I almost got it right, but not entirely. It took several breakfasts to figure out that if you want to do as they do, the Sevilians, or perhaps all Spaniards, you order a morning set and you’ll get juice, coffee with milk and a toasted roll. Take it with ham, tomato or jam. The price for all that will probably be less than if you order juice alone. It’s just the way it is.





We look for the market, don’t find it (because it’s not there) and backtrack to the Plaza de Toros de la Maestranza. This is where Seville’s great tradition of bullfighting takes place and I say great as in large as opposed to fantastically wonderful. Obviously I’m one of those who is squeamish about the whole concept (I don’t get boxing, hokey or football either – somehow violence as sport doesn’t excite me), but I know no bull has passed through the gates since October and I am not opposed to taking a tour of the beautiful old rink built for the purpose of slowly killing bulls. When Ed makes some comment indicating how terribly offputting the whole thing is, I remind him that back home, he has a cat who likes to torture mice to death in much the same slow way.





But I am not very good at listening to tour guides – especially ones who err on too much or too little detail (this one was the latter) and so after poking around a little, I cut out, feeling entirely satisfied that I have paid enough homage to the place of bull killing (call it what it is; I fail to see it as much of a fight. The deck is stacked against the poor animal no matter how many ambulances stand by at the periphery).





And now we finally approach the Alcazar – the palace built over a period of many centuries, but most notably containing the 14th century additions of Pedro I (who was on good terms with the Muslim emir of Granada and a great fan of the Alhambra palace there). I need add nothing else. Just walk quietly through it with me and make a note to someday take the trip to Seville, because truly, seeing this – and I recommend doing so in the cool relative quiet of a winter day – will be worth the hassle and expense of getting there.




























We move seamlessly from room to courtyard to garden -- enchanting even now at this seasonally restful moment.































At one corner, we find a place (one of many) to sit down, in the favorite way of ours where I am in the sun and Ed is in the shade and I will be surprised if there will be a moment on this trip that will surpass the beautiful tranquility of the minutes we sit there, listening to flights of birds and a distant rumble of a city somewhere there, but not really there at all, not for us, not in this second.







Perhaps the best way to digest the hours spent at the Alcazar is over a late lunch. There are dozens of families out and about... (here are three kids in blue coats with the girls in green tights and with rose bows, and three girls in gray coats and pink tights with pink bows, plus some sundry other sibs)


 


...and even more families at outside tables...






...and there are plenty of tapas places to choose from except  you can’t choose by popularity because they’re all crowded, all with tables spilling out onto the tight sidewalks. So we pick one that seems to have an understandable selection of small dishes, only to find out that they’re not doing small tapas but only half plates and full plates – all very confusing, but no matter, I order two halves – shrimp bubbling in garlic olive oil and spinach with chickpeas and though Ed says he is still not hungry, he changes his mind and helps me eat both.











And so we can dive now into the next and final for us Sevillian sight -- the smaller palace, the Casa de Pilatos. And it’s very pretty and very quiet – a bit out of the way (at the edge of the Jewish Ghetto, so it does make for a nice walk through these tight, confusing alleys)...


 


....it does not really draw lines or crowds and that certainly is pleasant enough. It can’t and shouldn’t be compared to the Alcazar and I’ll resist the temptation to do so, only to say the Casa is like having a perfect espresso after an exquisite meal.
















And now it’s nearly evening and we walk through squares packed with cafés and people...


 



...lots and lots of people and if ever there was a use for the word merrymaking, I’ll throw it out now, because truly, in that great conversation over food and beverage (oftentimes with children playing at the side), there does seem to be a joyousness present that’s hard to imagine under other circumstances.










And the rest – well, you know the rest. Deleting photos and eating pizza in the distant company of the sweet three year old Alejandra.



The next morning, Tuesday morning, this morning, we finally do breakfast right – at this sweet little local place where the waiter has a brother in New York and is pleased that Ed can speak like a native (and understand like a foreigner). I munch on my toasted roll with marmalade and Ed proclaims it is the best orange juice he has tasted ever, or at least on this trip.






We walk to the station with our packs – an hour’s walk really, if you stop to admire Sevillian ceramics...





...and pause to pick up fruit at a local fruit stand where oranges right now are selling for 2 Euro for five kilo.







...and we take the train to Granada.