Hello everyone. After visiting the Nasrid Palaces, we moved on to the Alcazaba. Basically that is also a part of the whole Alhambra complex. Everything was built in an incredibly monumental way and it offers a wonderful perspective of the city. Granada is visible much more clearly from here. The Alcazaba sits at an altitude of about 700 meters and the hills start to climb right from here.

From the Alcazaba, you can observe the courtyards in Arabic architecture style very well. So it is a typical house layout, an inner courtyard with columns inside, coolness, water. Thujas grow in the courtyard of some and palms in others. It is quite interesting. I think there are also some structural remains in the inner courtyard, but they seemed a bit too neat to me, so they might just be rebuilt foundations or something.

A little later we started climbing to a pretty high spot. Of course, the Alcazaba complex remains a bit more modest compared to the other side, but not gonna lie, I really like walking on these ancient walls. I do not know why, but I think the view here is even better than the previous palace.

Finally we went up a tower. The Sierra Nevada mountains with snow on their peaks were visible from here. This is precisely the highest mountain on the Iberian Peninsula. There is Mount Teide in Tenerife, the one we used to see every day from our window for 5 days while living there, but that is an active volcano after all. The one here is a mountain in the full sense of the word. It becomes a very nice ski resort in winter. It is strange, but yes, there is a ski resort in Spain. To be honest, I was shocked when I first heard it too. Long story short, those living in that part of the city go straight to ski in winter. By those living, I mean those renting houses, because it is an amazingly popular place.

Watching the interesting spots from above was enjoyable. The Cathedral and churches were visible. The old city, I think, is the Arab quarter built on these mountains, so it stays inside the walls. The remaining parts are structures mostly from the Christian era. The city center feels like a place entirely in the 19th-century style, but the area is really large. There is also a local airport, but it is not very popular. We could not fly there directly, so we came via Málaga. There are no direct flights from every Spanish city.

Then we went down from the fortress and explored the gardens. We saw large flowered, evergreen magnolias. Since the climate is warm, they bloom in summer in the south. In Germany or France, the places we are used to seeing, there are deciduous species. Therefore their flowers bloom in April, before the green leaves even emerge.

From here we headed towards the Generalife. There are two ways to get there: either follow the main road as you exit the fortress or go back to the gardens and walk along the shaded path among the roses. Of course, the second way is not exactly a shortcut. By the way, I thought the pools here were shallow, but I think they are at least 70 centimeters deep.

After walking for a while, the sounds of water started to come. I think some events are organized here, like an open-air concert venue. Finally we could see the Alhambra, even if from the outside. By the way I had only seen the Sierra Nevada mountain from a single spot, just barely from the corner. Honestly because of the word Nevada in its name, I used to think of this place as a desert like location.

Thus began the main section of the Generalife. Here are sweet corners surrounded by thuja trees. In the middle section, there are waterlilies, water and fountains. We had seen something similar in Cordova too. Though the one there was slightly smaller in scale. It felt like there was something similar in Lloret de Mar as well.

A wonderful coolness was blowing from the fountains, it was very nice. We looked at how the Alhambra looked from here. Looking from a distance, this defense structure looks really exciting and beautiful. Though photos do not really do it justice.

Here they had made almost a small house out of thuja trees, with the tops tied together. There were constantly roses, thujas and water lilies around. Of course, this lanscaping is probably a modern interpretation. Maybe there were thujas here in the past as well or they made such an arrangement temporarily for roses and thujas.

The Generalife was definitely built in a slightly different arshitectural style. Both its exterior appearance and its gardens are different. They probably planted the gardens inside later. There are various flowers. There is a nice detail here: the walking paths are separated, so you do not intersect with the crowd coming from the opposite direction. They guided people well. The flowers are also quite high quality. The trees are really tall, easily about 15 meters.

I turned out to be partly right and partly wrong about my information regarding the Generalife. It was actually built in the 13th and 14th centuries. But the only issue is that it underwent too many renovations over time. So it is hard to estimate what exactly is left from the original. Because the gardens were rennovated repeatedly in the 19th century, during the Christian era and in the 20th century. So yes, the gardens were roughly here, but these places were also being constructed during the time of the sultans. The logic was this, you would escape from the fortress to these gardens to catch a breath away from the heat of stone buildings.

Then we went directly up to the palace itself. I think this part is older and really preserved. Its state when it was built was probably roughly like this. Fontains and so on. I think there were fountains in the past too. After all it is a mountainous area and there is enough elevation to provide water pressure.

A wonderful view opens up from the Generalife. The flowers are very beautiful and the frame as a whole is perfect. Everything fits as if it were in the palm of your hand. They made the handrails here very interesting, water flows inside them. By the way, touching the water is forbidden, I think. What could be the reason for it being forbidden? Maybe so people do not splash each other or swim.

It is a very beautiful park. The only sad part is that nothing is allowed. Touching the water is forbidden, smelling the flowers is forbidden and so on. But visually it is very beautiful. And finally, at the end of this small garden, a magnificent view opens up before us. Tiled roofs, the Alhambra again and magnolias again.

The tree-lined paths here are really very peaceful. You cannot pass through this path while entering. They separated the directions. Everyone walks calmly in the shade. The surroundings smell like a wonderful nature mix of olive, thuja and flowers. The thuja trees above us were quite tall, but unless you look up, you hardly notice.

The price of 22 Euros is extremely reasonable for such a vast area. Our total trip took about 4 hours. Of course, we wandered leisurely and did not rush at all. If one moves fast, it could take at least 1.5 hours less, but there is no need to rush anyway.

At the exit, we bumped into the crowd of people again. At one point there was almost no one around, then it got crowded again. There are constantly tour groups here. There are plenty of fresh water fountains around. You can both refill your water and sit down to rest. When the number of people increases, there might not be enough benches for everyone, but usually a place to sit can be found.

Then we first headed towards the market and dropped by El Corte Inglés. That is a shopping center housing a great supermarket inside. It is not a cheap place, but it has all the products you are looking for. We bought a few sangrias. we drank wine the day before, but even when cold, drinking wine felt a bit heavy.

I listened to the cicadas for a bit. one was sitting on a branch right next to us, but their appearance is really scary. Some say they look like flies, but to me, they look more like huge cockroaches. Or like a horsefly.

After this, we decided to take a walk in the center of Granada and see what else is there besides the Alhambra. See you in the next Granada posts.