Today we spent our final day in Granada visiting the
ancient Muslim quarter, called Albayzin.
It sits on a hill across the river valley from the Alhambra, and is much
older. The original fortress was situated
on this hill and the old town built up on the hill below it. It’s a maze of narrow lanes only fit for
foot traffic where you have to be on guard against small cars and scooters in
those places where they are allowed; but for the most part it’s only foot
traffic. It has a fairly checkered
reputation at night but is very safe during the day. We walked up following a path I had laid out
on a map, or so we thought, but it only took about two blocks to be totally off
track so we just kept climbing and still came out at the same place. At the top is the favorite site for viewing
the Alhambra across the valley and I must say it is impressive from there. 
However it’s only one of many places where
you can get extremely attractive views across to the Alhambra, so I took many
of them as the light changed during the day.
The whole hillside is covered with ‘carmens’ which are houses in this
quarter and they are stacked up one on top of the other all the way up the hill
to the first summit. Further up the
hill above the houses are located many cave dwellings where counter culture and
the Roma people (Gypsies) live. All in
all it’s a fascinating part of the city and very appealing. At the end of the day we walked back to
center of town and went to the Capilla Royal, which hold the remains of
Ferdinand and Isabella. The Alhambra is where Boabdil, the last Spanish Sultan
surrendered the last of Al Andalus to Ferdinand and Isabella and quitted Spain
for North Africa. It’s also where Columbus made two pitches for his voyage in
search of a western passage to India and we all know how that turned out. Isabella built the chapel to serve as the
mausoleum for all Spanish monarchs but her great-grandson Phillip 2nd
bankrupted the nation building El Escorial and monarchs were then buried
there. We’ll be visiting El Escorial in
the next couple weeks and report back.
Ferdinand (l) & Isabella (r)
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