Zac's Visit Part 2

The most important part of Zac's visit was our trip to the Alhambra. This place is high on world heritage sites as it is the finest example of arab palaces to survive, I am not quite sure why it survived in spain as this country is full of falling down ruins but probably due to the quality of the building work, it is quite exquisite as it was abandoned for hundreds of years. The site is enormous as it contained an entire town, including mosque which is now a church, all converted when the arabs left. Even my last lawyer in Costa Rica was named Matamoros, literally killer of moors(the arabs from north africa who inhabited spain). So we entered into the walled palace area near the mosque and some buildings that had been converted into hotels, The King Carlos who was the ruling monarch attempted to build a palace that was the equal of the Arab palace but he ran out of money as he was running amok in Europe defending the Catholic cause, it was a roofless ruin until the EU provided regional development money to pay for it to be converted into a museum, it does have spectacular walls

The Mosque and hotel area




The Carlos V palace that was a roofless ruin




The circular courtyard, huge and impressive




The Theme for the palace was these guys knew how to build a palace that had running water all year round in this semi desert country. Every state room courtyard had a pool or fountain or pond with fountain, just everywhere there was water, it is just so impressive, almost awesome, but as you all know this word is saved for Alien Invasions only.

One of the long pools with fountains in the courtyard




Another courtyard with a fountain, no electric either




The poolside for sunbathing must have been fantastic




The gardens must have been impressive to support so many courtiers and guards, the area that I thought was the Hareem is also full of water features and gardens

Hareem water features




View from Hareem




Wonderful architecture and Views




We ate some fantastic food afterwards and took a slow drive home, it is only 80 Km away from my house, what a fantatic day and I dropped Zac off at the airport the next day, I was sad that he left early but glad he could get a flight home to see his ill mum.