Day 33- Granada

Big day planned today. We had booked a tour to a place called The Alhambra. This is a palace and fortress complex and is one of Spains major tourist attractions with over 7,000 visitors a day. 

  The Alhambra displays the country's well known Islamic architecture, together with the 16th Century Christian buildings and a well manicured large garden area containing an ancient summer house.

    One of the many rooms that are adorned with intricate Arabic carvings. The view through the windows is of the city below, it does look like it is picture perfect.

You really do need a guide and ours, Juan Civantos was excellent. Our tour went for three and a half hours which seems long but you could spend a day roaming around. Juan was a fountain of knowledge and he had a great sense of humour.

   The views of the city are spectacular as well.

    Generalife is the area that contains the King's summer house and is translated as 'garden of paradise' or 'garden of feasts'. It contains many gardens such as this with water being a major feature of the area.

   Pit stop halfway through the tour, as you can have an overload of information at times. It is one of those must see places if you go to Granada.

We caught the C3 small bus up the hill to The Alhambra and walked through the woods on the way back down to the city centre.

   The stone walls that separate the woods from the city.

After lunch in a local taverna we headed back for a siesta. We are off to a traditional flamenco performance tonight and it doesn't start until 11pm, way past our bedtime. Everything starts late here, most shows and performances don't start till 10.30, so a nanna nap is essential for survival.

   We ended up in the district of Sacromonte, in a gypsy cave watching an authentic Zamba. A Zamba is a show of the deepest emotions in the expression of the purest form of the flamenco art. 

   The room has chairs around the walls and the dancers, singer and guitarist sit in amongst the visitors and perform in the centre of the room. At times I thought they were going to step on our toes we were that close.

 The show was split into two parts with different singers and dancers. The emotion was so intense that at times I found myself watching the vocalist thinking he was going to explode. The language that is used is a style of Arabic with an African and Spanish influence.

   The maestro was the final dancer and he was fantastic. I still am amazed at how quickly they move.

This is not your flamenco with ladies swirling their red dresses and rhythmically clicking their castanets but it is the style most common in Granada. A must see event.

   A late night,even the restaurants outside the hotel have gone to bed.