Here is one of our first views of Granada, with the Sierra Nevada in the background. Pretty choice.
First evening, we pretty much just went to our host family's place (ours was lovely!), ate (lots of great food... and good chats), and slept.
Next morning, it was a guided tour of the Albaicin suburb in what I guess could be called old Grenada. Definitely a charming area.
We were also supposed to go up the Sacromonte, but ran out of time (although we did get about halfway).
Had some awesome views from the Mirador de San Nicolas, although the photo below was taken slightly before the lookout point.
The big castle-ish building which you can see in the background is la Alhambra. Well, more specifically, I think the part we can see is the Generalife. Despite having an audioguide (and in English, too) I shamefully still didn't manage to take in much information about the place. From what I can gather from my wee book on Andalucia, it's basically a Muslim palace (and gardens).
Ah, here is another cute house in Albaicin, just near the San Nicolas lookout.
On our way to the Alhambra, we passed this float, parked up and most likely ready for an outing later in the day. For those who haven't yet heard about it, Spain is amazing in the Semana Santa (Holy Week... ie leading up to Easter) as there are multiple 'processiones,' representing parts of the Bible, in each town. There will be more photos in my other blog entries, but you can also find out more here.
Next on the list, a visit to la Alhambra, which I think was one of my highlights. As I have absolutely no grounding in Arabic architecture, this was all new, and fascinating, and very, very impressive. Plus there were nice gardens around it.
Having a lot of water around was apparently like heaven for the Muslim faith as, coming from such dry countries, it was a major gift! However, it was also practical for bathing before prayer - although I have to check my facts here, but I believe that's what we were told.
This next photo was taken in the Generalife, looking down on some former 'baths.'
After this visit, we needed to get back to Sacromonte. Spanner in the works: there was a procession (and therefore a huge crowd) which makes it impossible for us to cross the street we need to cross.
Fortunately, after a bit of zig-zagging, we got across the street and could carry on our merry way. Came across another float just setting off... note that these floats don't run on horsepower, but rather manpower.
Eventually made it to Los Tarantos - and without losing anyone! This meant that we could sit down, relax, and enjoy our flamenco show.
As you can see, pretty cool atmosphere in the place, as we were all crammed in, and people were sitting right next to the dancers, singer and guitarist.
I have to say that I don't really think flamenco is my thing, but I can appreciate it, and all involved were clearly passionate about it! Lots of warbling/wandering/improv-style singing, and foot-stomping, hand-clapping, cries of 'mira-mira-mira-mira!' and skirt-swishing from the dancers. It definitely made me think of when VOLVER is sung in Almodovar's movie of the same name!
At the end, a couple of our students got up to join in when audience participation was invited. Later, Rodolphe (other English teacher on the trip) told me he had tried to tell the lady to pick me as, being from the land of the haka, I already had a grounding in this kind of dance. I guess his Spanish must have let him down, as I didn't get asked. What a shame...
No comments:
Post a Comment