Granada and the Alhambra

We slept in this morning!  At 10 we met in the hotel lobby, and headed up to the Alhambra.  The complex is perched on a hill overlooking the town of Granada.  It's quite a climb up the hill to the fortress/palace.

The place is spectacular.  I'm sure its even better in the summer when all the roses are blooming and the trees have leaves.  But at least it wasn't 107F today.  

We started in the Generalife, the summer palace of the emirs built in the early 1300s.  

Then through gardens full of flowers, with water brought in a 5 mi long aqueduct from the nearby mountains filling fountains, to the palace begun by Charles V, but never finished.

 My favorite part was the last palace, that of the Nasrids.  The plaster work is exquisite, and some of the old fresco paint remains.  It must have been very colorful originally.

Isabella and Ferdinand lived here in 1492, when Columbus finally talked them into giving him money for his trip to the Indies.  It was abandoned, neglected, and then destroyed by Napoleon in the Peninsular Wars.  Soon afterward the people began its restoration.  Many Romantic poets and writers visited and wrote about its beauty.  In 1984 it became a UNESCO World Heritage site.