The Alhambra

okay so this is the first of a few posts about granada- there was absolutely no way i could do it in just one and even now i'll still be cutting down my content pretty significantly, but i'll make a facebook album for folks to check out for more photos.

Not the best shot but that's the Alhambra across the way, the yellow one on the left and the furthest right are moorish, the one in the center is renaissance

 So i should start out by saying that Granada itself is an enormous city, which is to say that it covers an enormous amount of land, but that said it's not a very tall city, meaning that you don't have tons of skyscrapers dotting the horizon or anything. Instead, the largest buildings are the religious buildings, a few civic buildings, and because of it's location, the Alhambra. For all intents and purposes the Alhambra was a palace composed of 4 massive buildings located on top of a mountain. Initially this was constructed and inhabited by muslim rulers and consequently reflects the moorish architecture and decoration of the time. However, consistent with Spanish history, the city of Granada was eventually occupied by the Catholic church and with it came changes to the look of this city. In the case of the Alhambra we have very minor changes to some of the structures, but in the case of one of the buildings, the moorish structure was completely demolished to make room for a fully renaissance 'palace' for Charles V (which he never inhabited). The structure is certainly impressive but admittedly looks a little out of place beside its counterparts.

So on our way up the main tower we were able to look back down towards the part of the grounds. The maze-looking things are actually small homes for soldiers- not so much barracks as just little apartments

So this is a solid example of the outside of the moorish style, simple and plain on the outsides, during the moorish rule this was whitewashed

So in contrast you can see on the right Charles V's palace that is renaissance and in that tradition has more elaborate encrustations on the outside (a few more pictures of these are on my FB)

This is inside Charles V's palace and as you can see, it pretty much follows what you'd expect from a simple renaissance building, with its obvious kickback to antiquity.

Alternatively, this is a pool and little structure in one of the courtyards that is more from moorish influence, notice the elaborate carving above the arches

So i have about a million examples of this elaborate geometric patterning that is carved into seemingly every wall surface around the inside of the moorish structures. it just goes to show you that you can't judge a book by its cover- who would have thought those simple façades would house this elaborate interior?

Like I said, i'll post more photos from the alhambra on my facebook in an album if you're interested, and i promise my next post on here will be slightly less art history heavy.