From 3f3cbe40e37bcd9aa7e8b7000d1e41348523cc65 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Brian Picciano Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2018 13:13:34 -0400 Subject: add granada to mr worldwide post --- _drafts/mr-worldwide-pt-1-europe.md | 65 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 65 insertions(+) (limited to '_drafts') diff --git a/_drafts/mr-worldwide-pt-1-europe.md b/_drafts/mr-worldwide-pt-1-europe.md index 0e2ef02..0046334 100644 --- a/_drafts/mr-worldwide-pt-1-europe.md +++ b/_drafts/mr-worldwide-pt-1-europe.md @@ -550,3 +550,68 @@ christian church in the 1200s when the catholics took Spain back, and has since been designated a cathedral. It retains much of the Moorish architecture, but with a church in the middle, and is an utterly fascinating place which I neglected to take any pictures of. + +## Granada, Spain + +This was probably one of the most interesting places I visited while traveling. +It was once one of the most important Moorish cities in Spain, then briefly +became a Jewish state, and then the seat of the Nasrid dynasty (the last Muslim +dynasty in Spain), and then eventually went back to being a part of the Catholic +empire. During this time it also had a large influx of Romani, and out of this +mishmash of culture it became one of the birthplaces of flamenco. + +My bus got in at night, but I was lucky enough to catch the last public bus from +the bus station towards my hostel. It dropped me off in the Albaicín, an old +Muslim quarter in the city, where the houses retain the old architectural style +and the streets are narrow and winding. From there I walked uphill a ways to +the Sacromonte neighborhood, the traditional home of the Romani in Granada. Here +the people had dug out caves in the side of the mountain, and made them into +homes. My hostel was in one of these caves. + +{% include image.html + src="mr-worldwide/granada-2018-0.jpg" + descr="The view from my hostel, Alhambra on the left. Granada, 2018" + %} + +The hostel was small and quiet, overlooking both the Alhambra (the castle on a +hill, built by the Nasrids) and the rest of the city, and the guys running it +were chill. One was Scottish, but he had come to Granada to live and study +flamenco, and it was obvious from how he spoke about it that he was completely +in love with the art and the people. On one night they took me out to a "real +gypsy bar", as they called it. + +The flamenco artists in town, the singers and guitarists and dancers, make a +living performing for tourists, but this bar is, according to my guides, where +they would go after the shows to hang out. There was no music in the bar, +but, as the night went on, three or four cliques formed up naturally, each +around a guitar player and singer, with dancers circling around, the rest +clapping to an indecipherable rhythm. The Scott knew the names of a few of the +people playing, and told me that it was at gatherings like this that the +musicians tried out new things and pushed the art further. It was the "real" +flamenco. + +After that we got kebab and went back to the cave. + +Sacromonte is situated on the face of a valley, with the Alhambra being on the +opposite side. So to get to the Alhambra I had to venture down to the valley +floor, where Granada proper is, and found a very familiar tourist district +filled with all the crap I'd seen in every other city. The Alhambra itself was +interesting, but also packed, and I hadn't realized they only sell a limited +number of tickets per day to get inside the castle, so I missed a lot of it. So +I went back to the peace and quiet of Sacromonte. + +{% include image.html + src="mr-worldwide/granada-2018-1.jpg" + descr="Sacromonte and the valley below. Granada, 2018" + %} + +Being uphill, difficult to access by car, it was in many ways warded off from +the wave of tourism which has swept the world and sucked the heart out of many +cities. Only those willing to carry their bags 20 minutes uphill could disturb +it. I found the absolute best spot possible, with benches overlooking the +Alhambra and the city and the sunset, sitting and drawing for hours, and was +only disturbed by one or two couples sharing the view in all that time. + +I had originally planned to head back to Munich after Granada, but after talking +with a lot of people who told me I _had_ to go to Portugal, I booked a bus to +Lisbon at the last minute and set off. And damn I'm glad I did. -- cgit v1.2.3