David Bennett

Travelling In Andalusia – Part Three

by

We travel by train from Cordoba to Granada. At least we try to. There is a problem with the train service. We get off part way and travel the rest of the way by a bus that is laid on by the train company.

Coming into Granada on the bus, we see that the city is built on a hill. The Alhambra is at the top, with steep and narrow Moorish streets winding down the hill to the ‘European’ part below. The contrast is striking. There is a lot of graffiti and there is a tension here that is absent in Seville.

The Moorish area is known as the Albaicín, and dates back to the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada. It and the Alhambra were declared a World Heritage Site in 1984.

The Nasrids were the last to hold out against the resurgence of Catholic Spain that recaptured Granada from the succession of Moorish kingdoms that held the south of Spain for centuries.

This painting in the museum in Granada depicts the Nasrid queen leaving the palace after the defeat by Catholic Spain. If it is historically accurate, then the Moors were well regarded even in defeat.

We stay in a hotel on a broad street, European in feel and layout, that divides the Moorish and the European areas. Turn up the nearest side street out of the hotel and we are in the bubbling Kasbah. And in the background to the south, the Sierra Nevada mountains.

We eat in a restaurant that is reminiscent of Morocco – dark, with low seats in booths, the smell of hookahs.

The Alhambra

We want to visit the world-famous Moorish citadel and palace that is the Alhambra. We learn that there are a limited number of tickets available and that we have no chance of getting a ticket because they are sold out months in advance.

We don’t give up. We telephone and we learn that the trick is to go onto the Alhambra website immediately after midnight, when agents release some of the tickets they reserved in block bookings. We do it and we are successful. Oh how happy we are that we have tickets, and so pleased with ourselves that we did not just sit back and lament when we first heard that there were none.

Twenty minutes after we get our tickets, we check again. It is true – they are all sold. It was worth hovering over the website at midnight.

The next day we go. That is when we realise that it is possible to see a lot of the Alhambra without a ticket. It is only to see the innermost parts that a ticket is needed. We are glad when we see the Almohad influence on the architecture and see the reflecting pools. We would have been disappointed not to see this part of the Alhambra.

And yet.

We compare our impressions of the Alhambra with the Alcazar in Seville. We think the Alcazar is more impressive in its detail. Oh, that we could stop comparing.

The Gardens Of The Alhambra

We like the gardens of the Alhambra. There are flowers and bushes and trees, and a steady stream of people from all over the world walking along the paths.

We sit on a bench and watch them pass. Down the hill to the south, to the city below, we see beyond to the Sierra Nevada mountains. From Cordoba to Granada has been interesting. In a couple of days we will hire and car and drive into the mountains.

Saint Petersburg Diary – Part Five – Tsarskoye Selo

by

It’s day thirteen of our holiday in Saint Petersburg, and we take a taxi to Tsarskoye Selo (Tsar’s Village), fifteen miles outside the city.

The countryside outside Saint Petersburg is nice – not an industrial nightmare. Some of the blocks of flats on the outskirts of Saint Petersburg are very big, and grey, but that is not unusual anywhere in the world.

Historical note: In 1918, Tsarskoye Selo was renamed Detskoye Selo (Children’s Village) by the Bolsheviks. In 1937 its name was changed again. This time it was changed to Pushkin to commemorate the centenary of the poet’s death.

That said, the guide books mention Tsarskoye Selo and everyone seemed to know Tsarskoye Selo and where it is.

Peter the Great gave the palace as a present to his future Empress Catherine I in 1708.

Some present.

The palace is so big it beggars the eyes. How to take in and grasp the size of this long, long building in pastel blue with gold domes? It makes Buckingham Palace in London look like a shed.

It is hot, and the queues to go inside the palace are long. We decide not to spend an afternoon queuing, and instead we walk in the gardens, amid trees and to the Grotto pavilion next to the lake in the grounds.

As small as the pavilion is compared to the palace, we decide it would make a nice pad to spend the summer.

We go to the outdoor cafe (also in the grounds) and we eat bits of this and that, and then ice cream.

Later, I get talking to a Korean man. He has a Fuji camera and we get talking. We exchange stories of comments we had received before we came – from people who had asked ‘Why would you want to go to Russia?’

To get back to Saint Petersburg we had arranged to meet our taxi on the street at a certain point and I photographed the spot so that we could find it when we came out of the palace grounds. I see that the photo captures the look of the town.

Coming back into Saint Peterburg in the taxi, I take a photo through the window and have a satisfying feeling of it being good to be back in the city.

Travelling In Andalusia – Part One

by

We went travelling in Andalusia a couple of months ago, in the Republica de Andalucìa, the Andalusian autonomous community that covers a large chunk of southern Spain – the green area in the map.

Seville

We landed in Seville. The city is doing well. It’s the capital of Andalusia and it’s a lovely city – the architecture is varied and rich, with some lovely buildings. Here’s a view through an archway onto the Plaza de San Francisco in Seville.

Christopher Columbus

The influence of Christopher Columbus on the city is huge. Originally, Cadiz was the port and centre for goods coming from the New World. But the coastline retreated and Cadiz was too exposed, so Seville took over, and the city became one of the foremost and richest in Europe.

Christopher Columbus’ sarcophagus is in the cathedral in Seville. According to DNA analysis, only twenty percent of the remains in the sarcophagus are his, probably because his body was moved more than once before its final resting place.

Horse And Carriage

Yes, we took a ride with a horse and carriage – a long trot around town, taking in the sites and meandering through the Parque de María Luisa. That’s the cathedral in the background of the photo.

Real Alcazar

Just across the square from the cathedral there is the Alcazar. It’s wonderful. What a complex of buildings and beauty – dynasties of Moorish influence followed by the stamp of Catholic Spain. Where the cathedral is huge and dark with tall, imposing columns – the Alcazar is light and airy and leads on and on like a mini-city within the city, with plazas, reflecting pools, and buildings leading this way and that.

The Modern Art Museum

The museum is way out of town and the photo at the top of this article gives you an idea of what it is about. It’s kind of weird, with not very good art scattered around the buildings. This ‘giant Alice’ was the best thing there.

Plaza de España

I’ll continue with Part II with our stay in Cordoba, but for the moment – here is a photo that just came out right. It’s a view through an archway in the Plaza de España in the Parque de María Luisa.

The Plaza de España was built in 1928 for the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929. It was bad timing because of the worldwide stock market crash, and it cost the city money it could ill afford.

It is all in red brick and strangely un-Iberian, and slap in the middle of the plaza there’s a canal with little boats you can paddle around in, as though in the Venice of an alternative world.