Granada

Just got back from a weekend trip with our program to Granada. We left on Saturday around 9 in the morning on a tour bus of 50 (SAS kids went with us, too.) Stopped at a little cafetería along the way for coffee, snacks and a Cola Cao for me, then arrived at our hotel in Granada at 1:00.

We wanted to go out and explore the city as soon as we got there, since we only had 2 days to see the whole city! We set off following a big group of people from the program, and got lost a few times. The walk was pretty, though, artistic graffiti on all the buildings and a view of the Sierra Nevada mountains in the horizon.

The snowy Sierra Nevada mountains were a perfect backdrop against the white buildings of the city. I never realized that the Sierra Nevadas were that huge, or that snow-covered! It made me miss the mountains a lot, and also want to go skiing.

The graffiti was everywhere in Granada-- covering many of the buildings.

We finally made it to Plaza Mayor, and had some delicious helado, which was delicious. Then a few of us split off from the group and hiked up to an overlook to view the Alhambra, the huge Moorish palace on a hill overlooking the city.

On our hike up to see the view of the Alhambra

We took the scenic route getting back to the hotel, and ended up wandering through some narrow, hilly, winding backstreets in the old Moorish Quarter of the city.

Our scenic route (ok, ok, we were completely lost) in the Moorish Quarters of the ciudad

Lost!

Once we got back late to the hotel, we set off again as a massive group to visit the chapel and the cathedral. Unfortunately our professor, Fernando, who usually gives the tours to our group, wasn't able to make it on the trip because his father was in the hospital. Instead we toured with Carmen, who is our Spain and Islam professor right now (she trades off with Fernando, but she teaches the artistic part of the class.)

We went to the chapel first. As we were standing outside, we watched the gypsies trap a few tourists. They walk up to you and shove a sprig of some green twig in your hand. Once you take it, they won't leave you alone until you have let them read your palm, tell your fortune and paid a few euros. They are very persistent. I've heard of gypsies who, when you tell them you have no money, will follow you to an ATM until you pay them. My friend Alice got caught by one of them in Sevilla and lost about 15 euros! Another girl we knew got out her wallet to pay, and the gypsy took it from her. As she was fighting to get it back the gypsy mysteriously managed to steal about 20 euro without the girl noticing. Crazy!

The chapel was charming. Fernando and Isabel spent a fourth of their fortune to build it. The most exciting part were the tombs of Isabel, Fernando, their daughter Juana the Loca and her husband Felipe the hermoso. It was incredible to see the tombs of the people who had so much influence on Spain and the world. The majority of culture classes so far have been about the Reyes Católicos, so it was very exciting to see their tombs. We also watched a movie about Juana the Loca on Friday afternoon for our Art and Culture class, and I think it made us all relate to Juana.

Everyone knows how Fernando and Isabel sent Columbus to America, united the kingdoms of Aragon and Castile, pushed the last Muslims out of Spain in Granada, and conquered territories around the world. They are known as the parents of modern Spain because they basically created Spain as we know it.

But in case you don't know the story of their daughter, Juana la Loca: Isabel and Fernando married off all their children to various royalty throughout Europe in order to promote good relations (including their daughter, Catalina of Aragon, to King Enrique the VIII.) They married off their daughter Juana to Felipe of Austria (known as Felipe the hermoso.) However, Felipe was a womanizer and a player. He slept around with lots of girls and made Juana extremely jealous. According to the movie, this is what drove Juana to madness, although our professor Fernando says it also ran in the family. Juana and Felipe became king and queen of Spain when Queen Isabel died because all of the siblings who were next in line to take over the throne died. This made them the reyes of Spain, Austria, and all of the many territories that Spain had conquered under Fernando and Isabel. However, Juana was declared crazy and unfit to rule. No one liked the foreigner Felipe taking over, and he mysteriously died after drinking a glass of water (probably poisoned.) Juana spent the rest of her years locked away in a tower, where she kept Felipe's embalmed body by her bedside and kissed it goodnight before she went to sleep for two years after he died.

The tomb of Juana la loca. Because she and her husband had such a distant relationship, the figures are turned away from one another and looking in different directions.

Me in front of King Fernando. The figure of Isabel has a bigger dent in her pillow to signify she has a bigger brain, because she was more intelligent than Fernando.

We could go down below the monument and look through a glass window to see the actual caskets of Fernando, Isabel, Felipe, Juana and one of their children who died really early in life. Kind of eerie, but cool.

The high altar is dedicated to John the Baptist and John the Evangelist. In the middle the two Johns (Juan, in Spanish) are chatting in a humanistic scene. Scenes from John the Baptist's life are on the left-- including a gruesome scene of his beheading. John the Evangelist's life is on the right-- including a gruesome scene of him being boiled alive in oil. To either side are statues of King Fernando and Queen Isabel praying.

To the right of the chapel as we were exiting, we came to a treasury, that contained Queen Isabel's silver crown ringed with pomegranates to symbolize Granada, her scepter, and King Fernando's sword. We also saw the queen's prayer book, a box that she supposedly filled with jewels and gave to Columbus to finance his journey, and cloaks that she and Fernando wore. It also had a very fine art collection owned by Isabel.

Queen Isabel's crown. We weren't actually supposed to take pictures in here, or I would have more.

Worn by Queen Isabel!

Then, we we headed to the cathedral, which is one of two Renaissance churches in Spain, and the second-largest in Spain after the one in Sevilla.

The cathedral definitely looked different than the other cathedrals we've seen so far. The walls were white and the semi-circular main altar had details carved in gold. It focuses around the theme of light and bright. Like the Convento de San Estaban in Salamanca, it had one big, main nave instead of several small chapels. It was a huge church, very impressive, but hard to enjoy for too long because it was so cold. There is a space heater beneath each of the pews so that people won't have an excuse not to go to church. Despite the cold, it was beautiful, probably one of the most impressive cathedrals we have visited so far.

(Entry to be continued-- look for more on Granada soon!)