A Good Walk Unspoiled

Editor: You've used that headline before.  Writer: And I'll use it again.  Any time I can quote Mark Twain, it's a good thing.

You can't top morning at the Alhambra, so we didn't even try.  But, we made the most of the afternoon anyhow.  

As Rick Steves fans (I don't care that he's a dope smoking lefty politically, some of my best friends are), we really enjoy his city walks.  In them, he has you do a walk around some historic part of a city, and includes all sorts of interesting, if lesser known, historic things stuff to see.

Editor: "Things" to see?  Not very descriptive.  Writer: Well, the stuff he points out isn't always a building or easily categorized.  Would you prefer I said "stuff" instead of "things?"  Editor: Yes.  Writer: Hope you are happy I changed it.  Editor: I am happy.

We started the walk at the unimpressive looking Corral del Carbon (which is why, in the post below, I didn't include a picture of the courtyard).  It turns out to be historically significant.  It's a Moorish structure called a "caravanserai," a protected place for merchants to spend the night, take care of their animals, have a meal, and tell stories from their travels.

It's the only caravanserai of Granada's original 14 sites.  It's a courtyard with 14th century Moorish brickwork (painted over) surrounding a fountain.  After the Reconquista, it was used as a storehouse for coal (hence the name), and now has offices.

Our next stop was at a horseshoe shaped gate with "Alcaiceria" over it (picture below), which was the location of the Arab souk and silk market, featuring silver, spices, and silk, it is now a market of souvenir stands.  

Back in the day, there were ten gates with armed guards to protect the merchants and traders.  Now, it's a rabbit warren chock full of crappy souvenir stands.  It's more fun to wander the alleys and think what it must have been like back in the day than it is to think about buying something now.

Oh, not only did Prince Philip II shut the market down, it burned down in the 1850s, so it's like the Williamsburg, Virginia of markets -- not real, but passes for it. 

Stop three was the Plaza de Bib-Rambla, a pretty square that was built after the Spanish Inquisition chased out the Jews and Muslims from Granada (and Spain).  Alas, the Neptune fountain was not running at the time.

(I'm a huge fan of fountains, but I try not to fan boy them too much.  Between Rome last year, Paris earlier this year, and now some fountains in Spain, the fact that many weren't showing off water when I saw them is disappointing).  

We did stop for some at a tiny shop named "ChurroWay" which sells, you guessed, churros con chocolate, the best sweet Spain offers.  The place we stopped did mini-churros, but they cooked our fresh while we watch (they fry faster when small, so that's how they prepare them.)

The bummer around the country of Spain is that many churro shops are open till noon, and then close again until 5pm -- missing our 3-4pm snack sweet spot!  See, there IS a problem I will complain about Spain.  No country is perfect, I suppose.

When we came to Granada Cathedral, we realized that I confused the modestly-interesting and smallish in size Royal Chapel with the cathedral.  That explains why the Royal Chapel wasn't big enough to me to be the second-largest cathedral in Spain.  So we paid our seven Euros per person and went in to the real cathedral, much bigger than MY fake cathedral!

The existing mosque was torn down and the church was built during a 200 year period.  So it started with Gothic elements, went to majority Renaissance, but also has Neoclassical altars and a Baroque facade.  

While the Granada-born and raised architect/artist Alonso Cano (easily my second-favorite Cano after Robinson Cano) finished the work, he did many other impressive buildings/art in Granada as well.

The interior of the cathedral is only modestly interesting.  It is huge, and has the added benefit of not having the choir block the view of the altar from the very back of the church.  The interior of the church was painted white by order of a bishop to fight a disease, and has stayed white since.  Mary is the theme of the cathedral.

It's got a lot of gold leaf on the altar.  I can't remember if this is the cathedral I commented in to Carol, "I get now why Catholics are so into guilt -- look at all the gilt!"  She actually laughed at that one.

A very cool aspect of the cathedral is that they let you pop outside the front (the tourist entrance is on one side) to have a good look at the facade.

After leaving, we popped into the smallish Chapel of the Adoration of the Perpetual Eucharist (my translation of the sign doesn't mean the translation is exactly right?), and wandered around that as a five minute church.

We essentially finished the walk at the Plaza Isabel La Catolica (Queen Isabel the Catholic), where there is a massive stature as part of a beautiful fountain in which Columbus is asking Isabel to sign a long contract.  There are also two base reliefs on the statues -- one with Isabel and Ferdinand accepting Columbus' plan, and the other with a stirring battle scene featuring the Christian victory over the Muslims at the walls of the Alhambra.

Of course, there was no battle for Granada, as the weak Muslim sultan surrendered the city and got out of Dodge, so that base relief is, to coin a phrase, fake news.

The plaza also offers a grand view of the beginning of Granada's Gran Via, with fine Parisian-like buildings flanking either side.  

Between the Alhambra, that walk, and the Albayzin and tapas tour, Carol and I did a solid job of covering the high points of Granada.