Granada
Our arrival in Andalusia as dawn was breaking coincided with the first snowfall on the Sierra Nevada mountains. Spain - perhaps surprisingly for visitors who think of this as the land of sun, sand and sangria - is one of the most mountainous countries in Europe. Dr. Zhivago was filmed here. Spain’s history has been centrifugal: Madrid sitting in the center of the high plateau of Castile has determinedly collected taxes from wealthier, coastal provinces whose loyalty to the Spanish state has often been strained to breaking point. The province of Andalusia in the Southwest of the country was occupied by the Vandals following the fall of Rome. When the Muslims arrived in the eighth century they knew the land as Al Andalus, Land of the Vandals. With the expulsion of the Moors in 1492 from this, their last stronghold in Spain, Andalusia acquired a westward orientation as its capital, Seville, became the launching pad for the conquest of the New World. Once again, the money flowed to Madrid creating a “golden century” for Castile. Andalusia lived obscurely on its memories until Washington Irving launched the ruined Alhambra Palace into the romantic imagination of the West. It is now the most visited monument in Spain and we were lucky that the onset of Fall had thinned the numbers of visitors to this extraordinary site. After a thorough tour of the Palace and the adjacent gardens of the Generalife we repaired to the Alhambra Palace hotel for a sumptuous buffet lunch accompanied, not only with fine Spanish wines, but also with the music of local students whose academic year is just beginning in this university town. We traveled to and from Granada from our port of Motril on a breathtaking new highway, just ten years old, which has been part financed by the European Union. The redistributive policy of the EU reverses centuries of Spanish centralization: the provinces are flourishing as never before.
Our arrival in Andalusia as dawn was breaking coincided with the first snowfall on the Sierra Nevada mountains. Spain - perhaps surprisingly for visitors who think of this as the land of sun, sand and sangria - is one of the most mountainous countries in Europe. Dr. Zhivago was filmed here. Spain’s history has been centrifugal: Madrid sitting in the center of the high plateau of Castile has determinedly collected taxes from wealthier, coastal provinces whose loyalty to the Spanish state has often been strained to breaking point. The province of Andalusia in the Southwest of the country was occupied by the Vandals following the fall of Rome. When the Muslims arrived in the eighth century they knew the land as Al Andalus, Land of the Vandals. With the expulsion of the Moors in 1492 from this, their last stronghold in Spain, Andalusia acquired a westward orientation as its capital, Seville, became the launching pad for the conquest of the New World. Once again, the money flowed to Madrid creating a “golden century” for Castile. Andalusia lived obscurely on its memories until Washington Irving launched the ruined Alhambra Palace into the romantic imagination of the West. It is now the most visited monument in Spain and we were lucky that the onset of Fall had thinned the numbers of visitors to this extraordinary site. After a thorough tour of the Palace and the adjacent gardens of the Generalife we repaired to the Alhambra Palace hotel for a sumptuous buffet lunch accompanied, not only with fine Spanish wines, but also with the music of local students whose academic year is just beginning in this university town. We traveled to and from Granada from our port of Motril on a breathtaking new highway, just ten years old, which has been part financed by the European Union. The redistributive policy of the EU reverses centuries of Spanish centralization: the provinces are flourishing as never before.
