Granada album

[April 25, Granada]

2008-PortSpain-14-Granada

Hotel Los Tilos

[April 25, Granada]

Hotel Los Tilos sits on the pleasant pedestrian square Plaza Bib-Rambla. Our room overlooked the square and offered a 24-hour ever-changing show. The square was ringed with restaurants and ice-cream shops, all the essentials of life as we know it.

Carmen lived here

[April 25, Granada]

Along with Sevilla, no place is more associated with Gypsies and flamenco than Granada. Well into the second half of the 20th century the Sacromonte district of Granada contained a thriving Gipsy community living much as they had for hundreds of years in troglodyte dwellings burrowed into the soft hills. Bettie remembers as a teenager visiting Sacromonte during a communal festival, enthralled by spontaneous bursts of flamenco song and dance performed by firelight into the small hours of the morning.

The Alhambra by moonlight

[April 24, Granada]

Though it is only April, we have been dismayed at the unexpectedly large crowds here in Spain and were not looking forward to sharing the Alhambra with massed formations of group tours. We had the happy idea to see the Alhambra at night, when most groups are being stuffed with Spain's notoriously late-hour dinners or treated to an "authentic" flamenco dinner/floor show. We had seen the palace of the Moors by day many years ago and a night visit offered a certain romantic charm.

Days in the Gardens of Spain

[April 24, Granada]

   Listen to Manuel de Falla as you look at these photos of the Generalife Gardens. Though part of the Alhambra complex, they well reward a visit in themselves, especially in spring. They spread up a steep hill across from the Alhambra and provide beautiful views of same. They, along with the lovely "summer palace" were built by Moorish rulers of Granada as a get-away from the business and summer heat of the main Alhambra palace. Today they give the visitor some sense of the luxury and elegance of the Moorish court.