Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Friday, 7 April. We got a brief glimpse of Malaga's Alcazaba (castle) as our bus left at 08:30 and headed north for Granada. We entered the mountains and, as we wound back and forth on the curvy road, often had great views back to the coast.
Although the region grew ever more mountainous, there were frequent arable stretches where we saw whole families in the fields doing the spring planting.
After a rest stop at Loja, we approached the Sierra Nevada Mountains. True to their name, the peaks were capped with snow. We arrived at the Hotel Los Angeles in Granada about 12:30.
[My notes lists these as the places we passed through on this day: Puerto de Leon, Colmenar, Villanueva de Cauche, Villanueva del Trabuco, Archidona, Loja, Santa Fe, and Granada.]
After the fall of Cordoba to the Christians in 1256, the center of Moorish power was transferred to Granada, bringing a massive influx of nobles, architects and money which eventually led to the construction of the Alhambra. Granada was the only surviving bastion of Islam in Spain until finally the last Arab king had to relinquish the city to Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492. During those intervening two and a half centuries, the city reached a cultural zenith. The Spanish further enriched Granada with splendid Renaissance and baroque buildings for nearly another century before the city's importance began to decline. I had dreamed of seeing the Alhambra ever since I read Washington Irving’s book in my early teens.
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