Ola! Barcelona!

day NINE (Sept’07). Bye bye Granada.

Nothing much today except that we making our way to BARCELONA!!!!!! YEAY! Alls well time around (there can only be one Tangier incident).

We took a plane as land journey is way too long, Granada airport is PRETTY small I must say, reminded of Langkawi’s airport back in those day or perhaps even smaller.

Reached Barcelona in the afternoon, checked in and went straight to La Rambla Street. We arrange so that we can arrive during this week so that we can catch the Festes de la Merce festival. It is to celebrate the day of the city's patron saint ... the Virgin de la Merce. There were parade of the giants when a processions through the streets is made up of giant wooden figures (gegants) operated by people (yup! Internet again!).We didn’t manage to catch the human pyramid however did catch a colorful mime act. Boy! Were they good! We took loads of pics.

As we were still fasting…. Felt rather jaded. Went back to hostel to rejuvenate and prepare for an exciting day in Barcelona.

Barcelona here we come.

Credits : Spanish-Fiestas, Wikipedia

Granada Awed Me

day EIGHT (Sept'07). Hahahhahaa..... Kewl hah!


We had a good rest in the hostel; have to admit this is one of the best hostel we stayed during this trip. We had such a good rest, The Alcazaba Hostel was perfect, bed being made daily, clean bathroom with tub, hairdryers available (finally I can look good! Phew!), I couldn’t ask for more. Awesome! To make it even better, there’s a sundry shop below that sells Walls ice-cream of which some are not sold in Malaysia, fascinated we are (I sound like Yoda or maybe Yoda, I sound like... hemmm....).

It was a 5-7mins walk from our hostel to the Hop-On Hop-Off stop at Granada Cathedral, and we were early thus decided to take a stroll in the cathedral. Nothing much outside but we did see a mime artist - look armaturist. We were drawn to walk further in by the side of the cathedral, and guess what we found, nice little souvenir shop with pretty tile paintings. I also noticed that they put a lot of effort and emphasis on their balcony. Ahh…….. Very quaint.

We stopped at Garcia Lorca Park, hemm…. Basically nothing much but it’s nice to see other country’s park I feel, diff plant, diff flowers, diff landscape, diff scent…. Everything but everything was diff. Thus making it exciting and nice :D The park is actually surrounding the house of Federico García Lorca - is one of Spain's best-known and most loved writers, poet and dramatist, skilled painter, pianist and composer. Now the house has been converted to a museum.

Continued with our HOHO ride, seeing the little town from HOHO roof top, felt the clean air of Granada’s Sierra Nevada….refreshing! We also noticed a lot of parks in the city, the nice buildings, nice balconies, cycling expedition and Andalusia Mountain.

We are excited with the next stop - Albaycin. It overlooks Granada and also the birth place of Flemenco. Amazingly Albaycin was able to retain the narrow winding streets of its Medieval Moorish past. And was declared a world heritage site in 1984, along with the more famous Alhambra. Aren’t I lucky! To go to Albaycin, we need to take an Alhambra bus which is a smaller but to enable us to get thru the winding narrow street uphill. I have to say, the view up here is SUPER MAGNIFICENT!

Here you will see small houses facing the either Alhambra or Granada, friendly locals, culture retained - authentic in nature. Albaycín to its neighbouring Sacromonte and for many centuries it has been populated by the gypsy community. The mixture of Arabic influences combined with many centuries of gypsy influence eventually created the famous flamenco dance. Am fortunate enough to be able to catch this lovely dance in Barcelona (but not the bull fight though - seasonal apparently, there goes my chance to see a real matador).

The as the sun begin to set, we went for break fast before starting our journey back to hostel. Despite our tiredness, we “don’t” really want to waste our precious moment in Granada, thus we took a night walk nearby the hostel. A perfect way to end our last day in Granada. Overall, TWO THUMBS UP for GRANADA.

Next - Barcelona

Credits : Wikipedia, Whatsonwhen, Specialtravel, The Star, Ladrondeagua

Alhambra - The Red Fortress

day SEVEN (Sept’07). A sight to behold - Alhambra.


My quest fulfilled. I managed to cover one more of UNESCO site (which has also nominated for New 7 Wonders of the World). As usual, we have our day mapped, we’re going to Alhambra in the morning, the site will take 4 hours at min (according to the Alcazaba hostel friendly owner), we will finish by afternoon; carry on with walk and a little exploring of the town. “smile” can’t ask for more.

We have booked our tix online back home to avoid the queue as we read reviews that they control the amount of crowd in and also there are timing to adhere. The tixs are to be redeemed at a machine whereby Andrea just need to insert her credit card that was used to purchased the tix and the machine will just purge out the tix. Wow! Changgih!
We entered the fortress and rent a mobile tourguide narrator (available in few language), with this; you don’t need a human tour guide to take/show you around. Just press the numbers according to the location shown and it will tell you what is there to see and a brief history of it. More changgih (again!)! This is one place where we took sooooooo many pics that our camera ran out of battery before the day end. Hahahah… *satisfied*

Alhambra is divided into 3 parts which as created originally for military purposes; "alcazaba" (fortress), an "alcázar" (palace) and a small "medina" (city) , basically it’s like a town inside a town. As it is located on top of the hill, at night it looked rather majestic & mystical all at the same time. As we walked in, we passed by Charles V Palace, displaying a Renaissance style, it represents Italian classicism in Spanish architecture (obviously I copy this from website!). We don’t expect much as we have seen this type of buildings in other part of Europe country. We didn’t even venture into the museum located inside either as we need to read the Nasrid Palaces as per the stipulated hour.

We reached Nasrid Palaces (Palacios Nazaríes) on time (phew!), the queue is not that long in fact we were quite early. The Nasrid Palaces were the residence of the kings of Granada. Its construction was started by the founder of the dynasty, Alhamar, in the thirteenth century. And you have to see the walls and the carving! These walls enclose the refinement and the delicateness of the last Hispano-Arab governors of Al Andalus. Three main palaces form these premises: The Mexuar, The Comares, or Yusuf I Palace and The Palace of the Lions, or of Mohammed V. Water is the element that shapes the palace, combining the garden with architecture. We manage to cover all, thanks to our “tour guide”.

From Nasrid Palace, we are able to see The Daraxa garden; a closed garden - a place of charms and delights. You can see a fountain in the middle with flowers and orange trees surrounding it (hemm… can we eat them?).

Later we took a tour to Generalife, villa of the sultans of Granada (good to be king!), it is surrounded by orchards and gardens. We followed our “tour guide” advice and climb the Water Staircase, to hear the clear, cold water running thru the stairs. At the end of the Water Stairway is the highest point in the Generalife - Romantic Observation Point, built in 1836.

After all the girl gardens, we went to a macho honcho area - Alcazaba; fortified military complex and also the oldest part of Alhambra. The bestest thing is that this area contains the famous Torre de la Vela, a watchtower that has an unbeatable view of Granada. We took a walk on Armas Tower and as high as Vela Tower. If only we had a Malaysia flag when we were up there - it could have been perfect.


Another day of Hop-On Hop-Offing

Credits : Wikipedia, Alhambra.info, Trekexchange, Hostelbooker, UNESCO, 7wonders, Granadainfo