Alhambra

Travel Dates April 2003; edited 25 August 2008

Click on any picture to see a large version.

Well, what can I say about the Alhambra that hasn't been said before? I'll talk more about my own impressions.

Since we visited the Alhambra in 2003, I've seen a lot of mediaeval Castles and walled cities. Too many to list them all, but including Karlstein and others in Czech, Radicofani, Buonconvento, Siena and others in Italy, Budapest, Visegrad, Stirling, Edinburgh, Dublin, Limerick, Topkapi, Roi Rene's castle and more.

We got "castled out".

I didn't even bother going inside Neuschwanstein - it's main appeal to me was the external fairy-tale view anyway.

Never again did we see a place with quite the magnificence and presence, the sense of grandeur displayed by the Alhambra and Generalife.

Other mediaeval castles give impressions of strength, brutality, feudalism - the Alhambra has the strength but also leaves lingering impressions of a civilisation much more advanced than the rest of Europe in it's era.

You can get some idea of that from the gardens, the quiet places, the use of water and airiness of construction. I'll leave the rest to the photos.

Cheers, Alan