Not that Seville couldn’t hold our attention, but there was at least one additional stop on our itinerary for Spain, which needed a rental car. Since she was a little girl and first heard about it, Lisa has always wanted to see the Alhambra, an iconic piece of Spanish and Islamic history, part architectural feast and part historical treasure trove. There was no way we could this close to this palace complex and not pay it a visit… assuming we survived the drive.

Truth be told the driving wasn’t that bad. From Seville the drive to Granada is essentially all on major highways, well-groomed and -maintained roads that provided few obstacles. It was in the last few kilometers, well into the actual environs of Granada, that things got dicey. As has been mentioned before, Americans have to come to grips with the fact that, on the whole, Europeans don’t knock stuff down just because they want to build something newer. If there’s anything like eminent domain land acquisition we’ve seen no evidence of it. As a result, in “historical” areas the roads you’re on are probably similar to if not identical to the roads that were in place two hundred years prior to accommodate donkey traffic. Out in the countryside this makes for a hassle, with lay-bys and backtracking part of the daily commute. In any size town it becomes much more precarious – your typical one-lane, bi-directional road is hemmed in by stone houses that hug hairpin turns. Granada had this on steroids. It may not be unique but it was the first time we had a traffic light just to get you safely around a 160-degree turn featuring bi-directional traffic up and down a steep hill on barely one lane. Eep!

Wisely, if we do say so ourselves, we parked as soon as was humanly possible and stuck to public transit while we were there. For such a little area (the “old town” that is) there was actually a robust transit network, featuring numerous little 14-person (give or take) buses. Probably there’s a lot to see in old town Granada, but we were there for basically one day and our agenda was simple: the castle/fortress known as the Alhambra.

So just what is this Alhambra thingie? Boiled down, it’s a large complex of buildings most of which are enclosed in defensive walls (along with some of the inevitable “out buildings” that grew up outside the fortifications.) The attraction lies in the history of the place (something was situated at this location since the 9th century; the “proper” fortress began in the early 1200s) and the beauty of the place. Islamic rulers were in no way inferior to Christian ones when it came to expense and grandeur in their homes. The biggest difference is a matter of subject matter, or the lack thereof; Islamic art does not depict the human form in most (all?) circumstances, and so the artistic ornaments tend to be in patterns and elaborately rendered text.

You don’t just “go to the palace” like in some places you may have been. Visiting the Alhambra is (or should be) an all-day affair, with numerous buildings worth poking around in. We had the luxury of an incredibly knowledgeable tour guide and still feel sure there’s another day’s-worth of exploration left for us on a future visit. Not only that, but we were there in late-December for pete’s sake; the gardens of the Alhambra are renowned for their beauty, and we saw almost none of that on display. (Why go around New Year’s? We had the time off from class, short answer.)

One of John’s favorite bits was the “Court of the Lions”, a courtyard within one of the central buildings and so-called because of a huge fountain resting on the backs of twelve encircled lions. The history of the Alhambra is extensively recorded, from architects to rulers, how it was funded, maintained, and expanded… practically everything is memorialized. And, nobody has a clue what’s up with this fountain. Not what it was originally called, not what it’s doing there, or what it may symbolize. For all we know, one of the rulers just thought it looked cool. Which, to be fair, it totally does.

Our time at the Alhambra essentially consumed our entire stay in Granada; we were out the next day to get back to Seville. Honestly if we’d known we’d have given it another day, and it’s definitely earmarked for a return trip when we’re next in the region.