Jan. 6, 2015
The beauty of Alhambra in part is its gardens and fountains, of which we did not see on a sunny, but cool January day. This was the fifth palace we had explored during this month long vacation in Spain. We had heard so much about it and know that it’s one of Spain’s major attractions yet it left us a little in awe of this ranking.
Don’t get me wrong, the entire facility is interesting AND we loved the Morrish influence, the tiles and the plaster designs are breathtaking. The palace is filled with decorative walls, doorways and ceilings! They destiny are worth seeing it’s just that other palaces on this trip have been breathtaking too, including the Alcázar in both Segovia and Sevilla. The gardens were also beautiful (or we knew it would be with flowers etc ).
Originally built in 889 it was abandoned until around 1059 when the Morrish rebuilt it and made it a royal palace in 1333. During his time of power Napoleon tried to destroy the palace and succeeded in blowing up two towers. This began another round of abandonment. Finally in 1870 it was declared a national monument. There is constant renovation occurring and we witness many aspects of that on our tour. It took about 4 hours to visit everything.
We had not seen so much Moorish influence elsewhere in Spain, there was much more here. Gift shops and street vendors had items for sale we’d seen in Istanbul rather than in Spain. It brought back good memories from former trips.
there was ice in this fountain
the gardens are beautiful. The groundskeepers are doing a lot of work on them to try to bring them back to their original style.
timistravels 
Leave a Reply