We had a very relaxing day at sea yesterday. The highlight for me was when the pool guy came around and "refreshed" me by spritzing me with strawberry water and covering my eyes with cold cucumber slices! Now that's service!
As tickets to The Alhambra sell out months in advance-- and we didn't order them--we were lucky that 2 people on the ship's tour cancelled and we were able to go today on the ship's excursion to The Alhambra in Granada, Spain.
Our tour guide was a clone of Celine Dion and had that delightful quality of making every statement a question---It was built starting in 1238, huh? The Catholics Ferdinand & Isabella took it in 1492, ehn?
The palace and grounds are a curious combination of very traditional Islamic architecture with carved screens and doors and ceilings, contrasted with the palace of Charles V (grandson of Ferdinand & Isabella) which has Doric and Ionic columns, and scenes of battles, and big metal decorations.
The gardens were beautiful and the roses and the jasmine smelled heavenly. We heard one story of a tryst under this Cypress tree between the first wife of the Sultan and the head of a noble family. The Sultan didn't take kindly to this so he invited all the men in the noble's family to dinner and beheaded all 36 of them!
As we had some time after our tour we took the shuttle into the port town of Motril. When we were in Livorno they took their siesta from noon to about 2:30. So, we thought we'd be smart and have a nice leisurely lunch and a glass of wine (yes we are going to need re-programming when we get home) and go into town. Little did we know that the EU has done nothing to standardize siesta times and here in Motril the siesta is from 1:30 or 2:00 until between 5:00 and 6:00!
At 3:30 it appeared as if the entire town had been sucked up by aliens as the only other souls we saw were fellow passengers! Here's a lovely photo of the town hall. We walked in and could have cleaned them out--but we don't have room in our suitcase!
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As tickets to The Alhambra sell out months in advance-- and we didn't order them--we were lucky that 2 people on the ship's tour cancelled and we were able to go today on the ship's excursion to The Alhambra in Granada, Spain.
Our tour guide was a clone of Celine Dion and had that delightful quality of making every statement a question---It was built starting in 1238, huh? The Catholics Ferdinand & Isabella took it in 1492, ehn?
The palace and grounds are a curious combination of very traditional Islamic architecture with carved screens and doors and ceilings, contrasted with the palace of Charles V (grandson of Ferdinand & Isabella) which has Doric and Ionic columns, and scenes of battles, and big metal decorations.
The gardens were beautiful and the roses and the jasmine smelled heavenly. We heard one story of a tryst under this Cypress tree between the first wife of the Sultan and the head of a noble family. The Sultan didn't take kindly to this so he invited all the men in the noble's family to dinner and beheaded all 36 of them!
As we had some time after our tour we took the shuttle into the port town of Motril. When we were in Livorno they took their siesta from noon to about 2:30. So, we thought we'd be smart and have a nice leisurely lunch and a glass of wine (yes we are going to need re-programming when we get home) and go into town. Little did we know that the EU has done nothing to standardize siesta times and here in Motril the siesta is from 1:30 or 2:00 until between 5:00 and 6:00!
At 3:30 it appeared as if the entire town had been sucked up by aliens as the only other souls we saw were fellow passengers! Here's a lovely photo of the town hall. We walked in and could have cleaned them out--but we don't have room in our suitcase!
Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:Spain
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