Alhambra - To Much Beauty to Handle

The Alhambra is the biggest attraction in Granada.  From wikitravel:  "Part fortress (the Alcazaba), part palace (Palacios Nazaries), part garden (the Generalife) and part government city (the Medina), this medieval complex overlooking Granada is one of the top attractions in Spain, with many visitors coming to Granada expressly to see the Alhambra. The last Moorish stronghold in Europe, the Alhambra reflects the splendor of Moorish civilization in Andalusia and offers the visitor splendid ornamental architecture, spectacular and lush gardens, cascading and dripping water features, and breathtaking views of the city."  This means so much beautiful sh!t that you can't take it anymore.  lets have a look.  ¡Vamos!





The start of more beautiful islamic art and architecture than you can handle.



sorry if this is not what you wanted to see. 











oranges everywhere in Granada.  i remember seeing orange juice everywhere too







Islamic palaces all have insanely ornate carvings.  You'll see, oh you'll see



Bob can't believe it either that they carved miles and miles of this stuff.



I'm loving the plants growing on the roofs of buildings in Granada.



Ok at this point its like "oh awesome another beautiful garden, it's so beautiful i want to lie down and go to sleep (because i'm so exhausted from the beautiful)".







Water flowing through the walls









The Fortress part



Bob wanted to climb that wall to the far right in the back.  I thought that was odd because bob is always so tired and destroyed.  But he would inadvertently get his wish the next day.  Bob also LOVES caves.  wtf bob.





The Sierra Nevada mountain range.  This picture does'nt capture how they just blended into the sky.  the snow covered peaks were so shiny and touching the sky better than any CGI movie effects could do.  when you see it in person it looks hyper real.  this is when it would be nice to have a zoom lens.





European union flag, Andalusian flag, Spanish flag, flag of Granada



pretty f'ing cool standing over on that fortress part.  surreal, all of granada on one side, the sierra nevadas on the other, the wind in your hair.





check out those magenta chromatic aberrations.  i hate my camera now.



at this point its like dios mio how much more beautiful and ornate sh!t can Alhambra punch into my eyeballs? (p.s. the answer is a whole lot more a-hole so get ready)



plain or the most beautiful blue you've ever seen?  I'll take both please





Court of the Myrtles, Palacios Nazaries









oh i'll just take a call from a client for a cover job over here in this corner in this islamic palace in spain.  i know my life is pretty hard sometimes.









Ok please me and bob multiple too much beautiful concussions right now.  The ceiling in the Hall of the Two Sisters, Palacios Nazaries









Had enough?  was looking at this post a little exhausting?  No more sprawling spaces filled with insanely intricate intertwining islamic geometric patterns please?  No more beautiful please!  Please, just leave us alone!  totally spent in every way possible, feet destroyed from cobbles stones and travelling all day, me and bob wandered through beautiful granda back to our hostel.  we went on a tapas journey and ended up at some cool bars which i posted in the previous post.  What a magical day in Granada.  NBD.  Alhambra is def the most impressive Islamic palace i've seen so far, the one in Seville doesn't even compare (still a beaute though).  Ok see you in the quaint skinny winding streets of Albayzín tomorrow.

Granada Day and Night

Granada is in the Andalusia region.  It's famous for its free tapas culture.  You buy a little caña beer and they give you a plate of tapas.  Its usually like 1.50 euro and you can keep going around and doing this all day and night if you wanted.  its a pretty sweet deal.









gazpacho is from the Andalusia region



leading up to Alhambra there are all these tiny alleyways and if you adventure into them you will be rewarded with the Spain of your dreams.





I guess this is all the Albayzin neighborhood, the ancient Moorish quarter.





white washed houses and narrow streets.  this is the spain i've been looking for.







Imagine if your address was here?







an endless maze of quaint tiny plazas with the occasional fountain.



you could spend a day exploring, we spent half.  Also you need some proper shoes because there are tons of cobbles stones.  They're not even cobble stones, they're like razor stone that are planted in the cement in the most painful angle possible for your feet.





Night fell and Bob and I were on a tapas mission.  We found and tried a bunch of touristy places but it wasn't it yet.  We finally stumbled upon this place just as we were about to give up (it was unseasonably cold and rainy).  La Taberna.  it was a young crowd and seemed the most local of all places we had seen, its also kind of hidden out of the way.



we struck out to find another place, but as we were leaving someone told us there would be live music later so we kept that in mind.  we found this place, Bar Soria, run by one guy who loved the band Journey soooooo much it was all he was playing.







so we went back to the other place and much to my surprise it was a jazz band lead by a clarinetist!!!  I love me some jazz clarinet and this guy had chops.  the backup music was Django Reinhart like which i also love.  They were really swinging!  what a night.



this was hanging around so i sketched them





sorry bob







we ended up meeting everyone including one of the Italian guitar players



Its nights of magic in Granada like these that you dream of.  Not pictured: the hours we spent wandering Alhambra in the day, but that will be the next post.  This was one of those days where we did a ton.