Cities: Granada and Valencia
Author: Nick John
James, Kelsey and I woke up early today to check out a giant, ancient palace, the Alhambra. Thousand-year-old Moorish palaces are starting to run together, much like giant gothic churches do after visiting every city's oldest cathedral, but I gotta say, the Alhambra is pretty impressive.
The palace is filled with elaborate geometric tesselating tilework. The ceilings are all intricately designed in seight-pointed star patterns, so many tourists spend the day with their neck craned to check out the detail (Luke was disappointed to learn there were no karate chops to the throat - THAT'S WHAT YOU GET FOR SLEEPING IN, KIDDO). Babbling streams of water weave their way through courtyards and fountains in marble living quarters for the resident sultans, and eventually through a swath of beautifully kept gardens overlooking all of Grenada, hedge maze and all.
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Before we left town we swung through a market and picked up a tub of what can easily be described as the worlds most delicious olives, and then made our way to Valencia. Grenada sits amongst rolling hills and in sight of a panarama of snow-capped mountains. As the terrain flattened into plains, James commented "I think this is where the rain falls mainly, in Spain." Well put.
Our GPS guide, who we've named Sir Thomas Chesterton, seems to have been day drinking, so his guidance is becoming less reliable. Yet he remains diligent in reminding us to "Keep Left" and offers the occasional "Moo" when we pass schools and places of worship. Despite all this, we made it to our AirBNB apartment in Valencia and were greeted by a very friendly woman Monica with her boyfriend and son. Luke and I crushed some cuttlefish and a massive plate of freshly caught seafood (other people ate other things, as best I recall), and we relaxed for the evening first along the boardwalk by the beach and then in our cosy apartment.
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