Spain Part III: Granada

 Monday May 26 – Granada

We got up early to take a taxi (there was some confusion there but we made it) and then a train from Madrid to the next stop, Grenada (which apparently means pomegranate, which is the city’s symbol). We changed trains in Cordoba, and all of this took a bit of doing to figure out and get on the next train. We got the upgraded ‘comfort class’ and sat opposite an English couple playing crib without a board to Cordoba. Maybe that will be Nancy and I with Agricola in 30 years.

It was a half-hour walk from the station to the hotel so we opted to walk to see a few things on the way, but it was incredibly hot (35C) and we needed to take lots of breaks so it took longer than we thought and eventually we abandoned the scenic route and headed to the hotel directly. We did snap some pictures of a church and a basilica that we never wound up getting back to,

There are orange trees everywhere there, including on the public streets and boulevards. Imagine going out and picking an orange from your tree in the yard (sadly they are not eating oranges but they smell nice). I guess you can make marmalade out of them though.

Our hotel was a decommissioned monastery, which was cool, including an intact cloister and bell tower. 

After resting for a bit, rearranging the room (which had three beds) and getting some groceries at the local Dia, we went for a short orientation walk.

The main attraction of Grenada is the Alhambra, a collection of palaces (some dating from the Muslim era, before the Reconquista of the peninsula) and Nancy wanted to be sure to see everything. It was some distance from the hotel (another half hour walk) and on the top of a hill. We took in the outside view of many of the buildings, including baths, a Renaissance palace from the Christian era, using the scenic pedestrian path up to the Alhambra, which passed by many towers built into the still-extant original fortress wall that runs up the side of the hill. We also went through some of the many gates that watch over the approach to the monument.

After that, we went down the hill and stopped by to see the exterior of the cathedral and many of the other buildings in the old city area. This included a sunset visit to a famous viewpoint, St. Nicholas Mirador, to catch golden light on the city as darkness fell.

Tuesday May 27

We got up relatively early to get to the Grenada Cathedral when it opened. We viewed both the cathedral and the royal chapel, where the famous Catholic Monarchs (Ferdinand and Isabella), who united the kingdoms of Aragon and Castille and started putting together modern Spain, are buried. Grenada was one of the cities they conquered to further the Reconquista, so they are a big deal here.

 The Alhambra was made famous by a book by Washington Irving, as he visited the site and wrote “Tales of the Alhambra” about it. There were a couple monuments to him on the site as it led to the protection and restoration of the area instead of letting it fall into ruin.

In the afternoon, we had timed tickets to the palaces at the Alhambra. The palaces are the main attraction at the site, and are one of the world’s best examples of original Muslim architecture (though I had seen many similar examples on the “Stans” tour in 2022 – Nancy hadn’t though as she was in lockdown for most of that trip). The later Christian kings also added on some much less sumptuous rooms.

The palaces were beautiful and included many typical features such as baths, prayer rooms, intricate stonework and carving, and interior courtyards with pools and fountains. They also had gardens, with more flowers, so Nancy liked them better than the royal palace we had seen the day before.

Once through the palaces, we went through the Alkazaba fortress, which again was originally a Muslim construction used and modified by the Christians after they took the city in Ferdinand and Isabella’s time. It had nice viewpoints of the city at the top of the main tower.

After briefly visiting the gift shop, we continued on to the third main attraction at Alhambra, the Generalife, which essentially was a pleasure garden for the Muslim and later Christian rulers of Grenada/Spain. They had gardens in their palaces but also wanted a separate garden to relax away from palace life, while still being available if needed. The gardens included one more palace, which was also used by the Christians as a summer palace later on.

The gardens went on and on (in a good way) with lots of beautifully-manicured hedges and roses.

This part also included an aqueduct system and storage cisterns that were in place when the site was built (it also hosted a mini-city of its own in addition to the site’s military and royal uses).

After that we went back to the hotel, stopping by a Burger King for a 5-Euro combo meal since our diets on the trip had been low in the protein department to date. Burger King is strangely popular here - hardly see them at all at home but they are everywhere (they amusingly call their kiosk ordering system "Auto-King" and it's advertised on signs). We also switched our grocery store allegiance from Dia to Mercadona, which had more selection and similar or lower prices.

After a long day with a lot of walking, it was back to bed at the monastary.

Spain Part II: Madrid day trips

 Saturday May 24 – Day trip to Toledo

We got up early to catch an Uber and then a bus (1.5 hours) to Toledo, the former capital. The old part of the city is situated on a large hill, which meant a hike from the bus station, though they also had some exterior escalators.

Once there, we did a walk around and went into the Alcazar, a fortress which is now a military museum. It was also very large and worthwhile, and included some ruins that are now enclosed by the new part of the museum.

After the Alcazar, we walked around the edge of the hill, which offered great views of the city.

We went down the hill and across a footbridge, up to an old monastery first built by the Teutonic Knights. It is now a youth hostel.

Down the hill and up the other side, it was time for a visit to the grand Toledo Cathedral.

Toledo is known as a city where Jews, Muslims and Christians have lived in relative harmony, notable given the conflicts between this groups in Spanish history. We walked around and found another nice church, as well as the Jewish quarter, which is signalled by special pavement tiles and markings.

Toledo also contains some relatively recently-discovered Roman baths. This was worth a free and brief view.

There is a special goat cheese in Toledo called Montego that Nancy wanted to try after some reviews from co-workers. She  got some cheese from the “cheese museum” as well as a as special cheesecake.

We wandered around a bit more, but it was getting on, including coming across a religious procession to a nearby church, so we headed back to the bus station at around 8 PM and caught a bus back to Madrid, caught and Uber and went back to the hotel.

Sunday May 26 – Day trip to Segovia

We were up early again to catch the regional train to Segovia (1.5 hours). Once there, we wandered around and found the old bullring (which is still in occasional use).

We walked down to the bus station and after some confusion, found our bus to La Granja de San Ilefonso, a former royal summer palace 10 km from Segovia. A lot of the palace is open for viewing. Most of the lower floor ("public") rooms were essentially to hold themed collections of art. I assume they were empty most of the time if there were no royal visitors. 

The main feature of the palace is its sprawling gardens. Owing to time constraints we only took a short walk around them but could have spent all day there. There weren’t enough flowers for Nancy to enjoy (mainly fountains, trees and shrubs) but I liked them.

After the bus back to Segovia, we went for a walk up another hill to the historic heart of the city, and around the cathedral, past the canonry (former residence of the cathedral canons):

and to the beautiful Alcazar, a fortress and royal palace that is now an excellent museum.

We were able to go up to the top of the Tower of John II in the Alcazar, which had great views of the city, in particular the cathedral.

We doubled back to briefly see the cathedral, which, while beautiful, was not as spectacular as Toledo’s. However, because it is built on the top of a hill instead of on the side of it, it is easier to get views of it from the outside. Still, I can usually not resist a cathedral.

The final stop of the day was the main reason for coming to Segovia – the extant Roman aqueduct bridge of almost 1 km. The aqueduct conveyed drinking water from the mountains some 17 km away, was built around 100 AD, and was being used for its original purpose into the 1800s. It is built of unmortared bricks held in place by their weight only. Such feats of Roman engineering were not surpassed for a thousand years. There is a significant tourism presence around the aqueduct, with a fair and lots of “Roman” (I use the term loosely)-themed shops.

A cab to the high-speed rail station located some distance outside of the city capped off our day, where we took a 20-minute train ride on high-speed rail (my first trip on such a machine, travelling 250 km/h) back to Madrid and then took the metro home.