1001 Alhambrian Cats

Okay that might be an exaggeration. There were more like 3.

The Alhambra is Granada's biggest sight, and is one of the biggest in Europe. Tickets for it sell out online weeks in advance, but fortunately (and totally unbeknownst to me) hotels, hostels, and other businesses in the area all have a separate pool of tickets they can sell from, so I was still able to see it (huzzah!).

The gist of the palace is this: the Alhambra was a compound of three Islamic palaces built on a hill overlooking Granada when the city was one of the last Moorish strongholds left in Spain. Picture an Islamic palace with all the arches and fountains and courts and such. You're probably picturing the Alhambra. Why? Because it and the Alcazar in Sevilla are the two palaces that pretty much every documentary and film uses as a backdrop when it needs one. When the Spaniards finally forced the Moors out of Europe, they built another Renaissance palace in the compound.

You were picturing something like this, weren't you? Told ya.

I won't go into details too much since my day basically boils down to "Chris went to the pretty palace. Chris saw pretty things in the pretty palace. Chris took pretty photos of the pretty things in the pretty palace. Chris is waaaay behind on photo processing and probably won't get to it until back in the states." It was a hike to get up there though, I'll say that much. And for some reason the path I took dropped me off in the middle of the palace compound...inside the ticketed area. Not sure how that happened. I still needed to show a ticket to get inside any of the palaces, so I spent half an hour to figure out where the ticket pickup was before actually seeing any of them. I saw the grounds and two of the palaces, then killed a half hour drinking coffee and watching some kittens beg for scraps while I waited for my slot to get into the Nasrid palace (the big kahuna palace, which you're only allowed to enter during the timeslot on your ticket).

Alhambrian cat.

While I was inside I realized why everyone hates selfie sticks. There's lots of awesome viewpoints in the palace, which always had a line of folks waiting to take a photo from them. Unless you had a selfie stick. Then it's apparently TOTALLY FINE to reach it front of all the people waiting, block their shots, and pretend you don't see them while you're doing it. Like this jerk.

Class A jerk right here. Made him real big so you can see his jerkiness better. Note how he is holding his
phone DIRECTLY in front of the camera of the guy next to him.

On the way home I stopped by a shop that made wooden mosaics in mudejar-style patterns, and got a backgammon set and a cool wooden tray, which I guarantee I will find some way of fitting into my luggage before it's time to leave. Honest. Totally. Maybe. After that, I just got home, dropped my stuff, and went on a tapas crawl with some folks from the hostel. Honestly, none of the places we ate were all that great (one was SMACK in the middle of a row of tourist traps and decorated in cheesy medieval armor), but it was still a fun time going out with a big group. I have more stories on them for a later post.