The morning that we were supposed to go to the Alhambra had all of the makings of a disappointing trip to a palace that is mostly outdoors. The weather was threatening rain in typically sunny Andalucía, and the only time we had been able to get into the Alhambra as a group was 9 in the morning, which meant waking up much earlier than most college students would prefer. Yet as we got closer to the Alhambra, the excitement mounted as some students who had dreamed of seeing this marvel for years neared the fulfillment of their study abroad aspirations.
Though not empty, the palace was nicely calm as an early morning ticket meant that most of the tourists hadn't gotten up yet. The many pools around this last fortress of the Arabs in Spain were tranquil and reflected the splendor of the surrounding buildings as they are meant to. As our guide explained, this is a culture that came from the desert before conquering Spain. With that knowledge, what is the most important thing? For this reason, water can be found winding its way through the courtyards of the Alhambra just like it can be found in the courtyard of the Mezquita and the Cathedral of Sevilla, where there also used to be an old mosque.
One of the things visiting Europe teaches you is to look up. There is always some unbelievably ornate ceiling escaping your view as you gawk at things at eye level. The Alhambra is no exception. While some ceilings are supposed to allude to the Arabic idea of seventh heaven, others will simply steal your breath and make you believe you are one step closer to reaching seventh heaven.
The famous patio of the lions was a highpoint of the trip. This beautiful patio is where I learned that Carlos V of Spain had spent his honeymoon in the Alhambra. I was astonished and was quickly rewriting future life plans when the guide explained to me that Carlos V wife wasn't actually in the Alhambra with him. Their marriage, like so many, was a political marriage without romance, and she did not like the Alhambra (I immediately took a disliking to this horribly mistaken woman) and she had spent the honeymoon staying at a nearby monastery. I swallowed my fleeting image of a king's perfect honeymoon in the most beautiful castle in the world and moved on.
The Alhambra is very open so that cool breezes waft through in the summer when the heat in Andalucía can become oppressive, but the palace isn't particularly appealing in the winter. This is what Carlos V discovered while living here when he needed to change rooms when winter came. He was particularly disgusted with the hassle, and instead decided to build another palace that was more closed and modern inside the Alhambra. He, however, never returned, and the palace went unfinished. However, it was the new palace in which Washington Irving lived for a month. When young, he read a book about Granada and was so enchanted with Spain that he decided to become an ambassador, and when he finally reached his goal he got to live in the Alhambra for a month, when he wrote about the Alhambra. This sparked so much interest that tourists started coming like crazy, and the Spanish government decided to save the palace that had fallen into disrepair (an aesthetic that the Romantics actually preferred). You can, however, find ruins on the same hill, of buildings that surrounded the Alhambra. They were destroyed by Napoleon out of spite when he was expelled from Spain. His reasoning: if he couldn't rule Spain, nobody should be able to rule it.
Washington Irving did a good job of enticing people to come. This is the most visited tourist attraction in Spain, and families, retired travelers, and goofy college students can all be seen wandering the historic grounds with a dumbstruck look on their faces.
When you go to the Alhambra, there is actually a lot more than the actual palace on top of the hill, because the Alhambra is actually a city compiled of buildings from a lot of different periods. This means that you can wander around the gardens of this monument and take a glance at the other parts. Beneath it all lies the beautiful white city of Granada.
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