Granada (Spain) - The Alhambra - Generalife

Granada (Spain)

02 September 2019

The Alhambra is an ode to Moorish architecture and culture, set amongst the pensive Sierra Nevada mountains. This place has gone through various incantations, casting its magical charm on all those that have gazed upon it and wondered through its halls of intricacy & artistry. I often wonder as to how majestic places such as these, along their historical timeline, seem as some point to simply vanish from existence. Take for example Angkor Wat & Machu Picchu, both marvels that simply vanished,  lost to the world for centuries before being rediscovered. So too the Alhambra. Having fallen into disrepair over centuries, the building for one period of time was even occupied by squatters. It’s unfathomable to even consider that as a possibility for a residence of such heritage and splendour.

The drive from Malaga (Spain) to the Alhambra in Granada (Spain)

                                            Map of the Alhambra - Granada - Spain

The origins of the Alhambra, whose name derives from the Arabic, al-qala’a al-hamra (the Red Castle), is mired in mystery. Some of its earliest references point to the construction of a small Roman fortress, approximately 900CE, but some of its buildings are understood to even pre-date that time frame. Having fallen into disrepair once again (well, actually for the first time, but the second occasion in this story), it was the Emirate of Granada that built the current palace and its walls of intricate beauty.

                                                    Granada - Andalusia - Spain

The Alhambra - Generalife- Granada - Andalusia - Spain

The Alhambra - Granada - Andalusia - Spain

The Alhambra - Granada - Andalusia - Spain

The Alhambra - Granada - Andalusia - Spain

The Alhambra - Granada - Andalusia - Spain

Having fallen in love with Spain many years ago I had never made it further south than Madrid. I can’t answer right now as to why that’s been the case, shouldn’t Andalusia have been a mighty draw card? Yes, of course. Even on this occasion, the little tid-bit of time that we spent in this culturally rich part of Spain has only been enough to wet the appetite and sponsor further daydreams of fabulous Andalusian culture, cuisine and geography. With that said, the one deal-breaker I had on our travails through Andalusia was to see the Alhambra. If we couldn’t see it, then hell, I didn’t want to step foot in Southern Spain at all (not entirely true of course).

Only a short 120+ km drive out of Malaga, the total drive time to Granada was just on 90 mins. Extremely easy, great freeways and direct. We had booked in for a 3hr guided walking tour at 9am, and having left Malaga at a little after 7:30am, had arrived pretty settled in the car park right on our starting time.

Generalife - Granada - Andalusia - Spain

Generalife - Granada - Andalusia - Spain

The Alhambra - Granada - Andalusia - Spain

Granada - Andalusia - Spain

At this time of year the Southern part of Spain can heat up like a pinata party at a Mexican quinceanera, you just can’t be assured as to where the fevered hits will come from. Also with a 6-month old we needed as tactical as possible with regards to our movements. Thankfully we were blessed with a reasonably mild morning and a baby that felt this site was well worth skipping. As Aiden slept we made our way through the Generalife, a Summer estate for the Sultan, featuring elegant rectangular plots with subtle water features, fragrant gardens, glorious trees casting shade and an immaculate view over the town and to the mountains beyond. The only problem I saw with the whole ‘set-up’ is that the Sultan’s Summer Residence is about 5-10 mins walk from the main palace. Imagine putting the question to the Sultan each year;

 ‘Well Your Majesty, do you have any plans for the Summer?

‘What do you think Khalil, I’m heading off just over there, AGAIN. Why didn’t I think to build my Summer hang out somewhere else? Oh yes, I know it’s soooo convenient, but hell, I never get to see or doing anything, it’s like being in a Melbourne lock down, Ellen DeGeneres style, you feeling me Khalil?’

‘Not entirely Your Majesty, Aisha and I live in a small hut with our goats and chickens all year round’

‘Aha, so you get it, am I right Khalil!’

‘Yes your Majesty, you are an insightful G’

The Alhambra - Granada - Andalusia - Spain

The Alhambra - Granada - Andalusia - Spain

The Alhambra - Granada - Andalusia - Spain

The Alhambra - Granada - Andalusia - Spain

The Palacio Nazaries was of course stunning. Divided into three main areas, Mexuar, Serallo and the Harem, each has its own identity, some parts with highly decorative ceilings, extremely intricate woodwork on the walls, particular plastering and paint schemes, the whole site is more than just impressive. It’s an enduring vestige of Muslim art and culture in this area that has preserved through a myriad of contra periods. For this reason it remains as one of Spain’s major tourist attractions as it exhibits the country’s most significant and well known Islamic architecture in impeccable condition. From a personal point of view, I feel more than privileged to have been able to walk through the grounds and experience the entire setting, even for a relatively brief period of time. I could well understand how our guide, a Dr, wrote their thesis on the architecture of the Alhambra and has dedicated their life to its ongoing discovery and the tales of its wonders.

The Alhambra - Granada - Andalusia - Spain

The Alhambra - Granada - Andalusia - Spain

Aiden & Inga - The Alhambra - Granada - Andalusia - Spain

The Alhambra - Granada - Andalusia - Spain

Aiden, Inga & Zaiga - The Alhambra - Granada - Andalusia - Spain

Thank you, Andalusia. You are an area of rugged beauty and architectural splendour. When the doors to your world re-opens I’ll certainly be one of the first to walk back through them.

Seville (Spain) - A day in the life of an upper cut!

Seville (Spain)

29 August – 01 Sep 2019

To quote Don Henley;

 ‘In a New York minute everything can change, In a New York minute, Things can get pretty strange’

The 29^th of August commenced under the auspices of a typical transit day. The intended logistics of that morning were for us to collectively move out if our rented apartment on the edge of Plaza Santa Ana and take the high-speed train down south, to the heart of Andalusia, Sevilla.

Travel and transit are known to be my domain. When it comes to organisation, connections, dependency on accommodation, arranging rooms, things to see, orientation in a city, more often than, ownership and responsibility resides with me. I feel comfortable in that role, which is to say more pointedly, I don’t trust the ability of anyone in my family to do the job to my standard…although, there are some ‘up and comers’ in the ranks.

On this day we were fortunate. A disaster was averted  by a relatively small margin.

As anticipated, our apartment pick-up ran smoothly, the transit to Madrid’s Atocha Central station was also smooth, even the much maligned passing through security was an actual breeze ,and then, we did one final passport check.

Inga to Henry ‘Do you know where you put your passport?’

Which I immediately took to mean – it’s not where I usually leave it, i.e., the passport folder that contains all our passports?

No. It wasn’t there.

This situations triggers 'ALERT LEVEL 2' and instigation of the bag search. Initiated in a fairly relaxed mode, each passing minute without success translated into increased levels of anxiety and frustration. This continued for several minutes until someone had to make the call. There was no denying the situation, we had stepped into the universe of one missing Australian passport. And one down in a situation such as this means all down.

Situations like this commonly challenge my mental outcome simulator to oscillate between past potential fact and future potential prediction. Meaning, that all at once the scenarios of where the passport could possibly be, and, what could happen if I don’t have my passport, play out in one rapid fire game of scenario dodgem.

Past potential fact scenarios–

1.  (1)  Perhaps I left it on the seat pocket in the flight from Lisbon? I know I saw it there at some point during the flight and I convinced myself to move it to a more memorable location  the seat-back pockets are both the easiest and dumbest place to forget personal belongings.

2.   (2) Did I leave it in the taxi as I made my way from the airport to the centre of Madrid?

3.   (3) Did I leave it in the apartment which we had just left?

4.   (4)  Could it possibly in one of our bags that commonly does not carry my passport?

Scenario 1 & 3 seemed most likely, with 3 out in front as a clear favourite due to my vague recollection of the passport appearing on the nightstand at some point during our stay.

Future potential prediction - 

1.   (1) Take the train down to Sevilla and go to the Australian consulate, if indeed there was one there.

2.    (2) Go back to the apartment and search the premises

3.    (3) Go to the Australian embassy in Madrid and organise a replacement

The future potential prediction also caused much logistical concern in my mind. Without a passport I couldn’t get out of the country, which really, was not particularly stressful to me but I had other people that needed me to get them from Sevilla to Barcelona via Malaga where they had booked flights to get them back home in a few days time. Additionally, it would be unfair to have everyone tied up in Madrid until the mess was sorted out. Quickly thinking through each option I made the assumption that could back to the apartment, option (2), but this in itself would be futile in that now, having to organise the owner to arrive, and, me waiting around hours on end for a potential nil result meant that it wasted time against what would be the most assured and essentially logical  decisions– actually going to the embassy in Madrid and obtaining a replacement passport. 

So I called the embassy, it was a Friday. 

They advised that they could produce a replacement on the day but that I had to make it there in the next few hours, also, they made me aware that the embassy was closed on the weekends. My hand had now been forced.

I scooped up the family, pushed them through the barricades and sent them on their way to Sevilla. I in turn jumped a cab out of the city to the ‘Gates of Europe’ – the twin towers in Madrid, where the Australian embassy was located.

At this point in time I felt like I was in an episode of the Amazing Race – queue Phil Keoghan - ‘In this leg teams will be asked to head to the Australian Embassy where they will be asked to present themselves in order to obtain an Australian passport, failure to obtain the correct documentation will spell disaster. The last team to finish may be eliminated’. 

Sevilla Santa Justa station - Sevilla - Spain

Messafe from Inga, apartment details - Sevilla - Spain

Apartment view - Sevilla - Spain

Certainly, if I couldn’t an emergency passport in time or if there was any extended delay then the rest of our ‘locked in’ plans for Spain would come falling down like a house of cards. There was only one way to get this done, successfully.

If you’ve ever walked into an embassy on foreign soil, be it your own or that of another country, there is an overt sense of patriotism underpinned by nationalistic paraphernalia that is meant to impart a certain feeling and notion of that country. I’d been to several US embassies over the last few years. Their over the top security, good ‘ole red, white & blue flags, as well their regal style of presidential portraiture wreaks of self-appreciation and grandeur. The Serbian embassy is socialist in style and make-up, basic furnishings, ridiculous paperwork, disinterested security. The Australian consulate in Madrid was as I expected, a little formal, very friendly in approach, decorated with kitsch Australiana. The ‘G’day’ greeting was enough to give me a little slice of home and make me feel like I could sort the situation out relatively quickly, and by the natural course of things, that’s the way it worked. All I need to do was get a few passport photos, pay $250 and by tomorrow I’d have a temporary passport in my hands. Too easy.

Edificio La Adriatica en Avenida de Constitucion - Sevilla - Espana

I headed out to get myself a few passport photo from a photographer recommended by the embassy. In the time it took to locate the photographer, get the photos and be on my way back I had received a call from the embassy telling me that Inga has located my passport, hidden in one of our travelling magazines apparently…

From here on out my day was quite pleasant. A drop in at the Madrid Hard Rock for a couple of margaritas and obligatory shirt purchase, a quick ride to Atocha station, and just like that, I was zipping south towards the Andalusian city of Seville.

Edificio La Adriatica en Avenida de Constitucion - Sevilla - Espana

Picking a rental car at Sevilla Santa Justa station, my brain needed to locate the ‘driving on the right side skill-set’ that I’d left behind some 18 months prior. As the old cliché goes, it really is like getting back on that bike again. The most stressful thing about driving in a city you don’t know is that you have no reference to the tricks and snippets of insider information that can get you to your location. 100% dependency on a GPS will inevitably run you into one way streets, closed streets and dead ends, which in Seville means you might find yourself driving into a public square – not the most astute position to find yourself in an era of lone wolf terrorist attacks.

With good grace and intuition I finally landed in a parking station that was close enough to our AirBnB to be considered viable. Seville, Henry Elisher had finally arrived.