So much for the Albayzín, at least for this day. We walked along the Río Darro, which is just a little stream here, and looked up at various buildings of the Alhambra. We found out two days later several interesting facts about what we were walking by. The Darro’s natural flow is much greater, but something like fifty years ago, it flooded, and did a lot of damage in downtown Granada in places where it is covered over and completely confined. As a result, the river’s flow is now severely restricted, to prevent any similar occurrence in the future.

As the Moors developed the Alhambra and their needs for water increased, they diverted from far upstream a portion of the Darro’s flow directly to the complex. But before they did that, they had to carry water up from down here, where they built a dam to raise the river’s level. In the first picture (small image; large), you see the remains of the dam that they built very early — in the ninth century, as I recall. After the Darro was diverted to bring water directly to the complex, the dam was allowed to fall into disrepair. So I suppose it’s looked like this for eight hundred years or so.

A word about the Alhambra: it’s not a building at all, but a complex of buildings, a real mini-city, which started out as a hilltop fortress with the fort called the Alcazaba, but developed to a royal and military enclosure that was the seat of government of the Kingdom of Granada. This kingdom was all that remained of the Moorish incursion into Iberia when the “Catholic Monarchs” finally conquered it in 1492.

We walked along the base of the hill that the Alhambra is situated on until we found a way to get in. On inquiry, we found that unless we waited on line for a ticket, only the gardens (the Generalife) would be open to us. We knew that the Country Walkers tour would be going into the palaces, so we concentrated today on the Generalife and the Alcazaba. Once we were there in the Alhambra, there was still plenty to see, and plenty of nice views to get snapshots of. In the first row of three, you see Mark relaxing on a porch (small image; large); and then a view outwards towards some church or abbey or other (small image; large); and then a view out an arch onto the town below (small image; large).

Next, in the upper row of two, (small image; large) you see the typical Moorish skill with decorative art. This is not stonework: it’s a special plaster made of a white stone, whether marble or alabaster I don’t know, and it’s not carved but molded. What is shown here is undoubtedly heavily restored, but even the original stuff is wonderfully fine and detailed. To the right of that picture (small image; large), Mark again rests on a porch and allows his picture to be taken before a view down to the town.

In the next row, we’re in the Alcazaba, getting ready to enter the level that’s shown at the extreme right of the structure in the next picture. I took this one (small image; large) to show the monumental quality of this early construction: don’t firget that the Alcazaba is the first-built part of the Alhambra. The right picture (small image; large) in this row is a mid-distance view of this part of the Alcazaba, and ther’ll be more pictures of it that we took two days later. In the last picture, (small image; large) Mark stands on a rampart of the Alcazaba and snaps a shot.

We left our self-conducted tour of the outer buildings and the gardens of the Alhambra, and walked back to our hotel. It was really too late for lunch, and far too early for supper, but the hotel kindly did not charge for use of the rooms’ minibars, and we relaxed with a bottle of beer for each of us, and took a little nap and wrote out journals before going out for supper. We went to a touristy part of town and had a meal in an outdoor restaurant that was not memorable, but perfectly satisfactory. And then to bed.