Sleepless in Granada

SLEEPLESS IN GRANADA
The Alhambra and its surrounding fortress are so impressive with vistas out to the snow- capped Sierra Nevada mountains where people must still be skiing. Strangely enough the Pakistani-Mancunian who wrote East is East, a film about growing up Muslim in Manchester, lives in the mountains beyond email and is planning a sequel, west is west-his parents sent him back to Pakistan, alone, to sort out his teenage wildness!!!! The palaces are not be-jewelled but the craftsmanship of the stonemasons is impressive. Pity the stone lions in the courtyard were under wraps for restoration. I was able to look back across a deep valley to the Plaza in the old town from which I had first seen it on Thursday. A Christian church and cross challenging the Moorish pile across the way.

The gardens are ornate and replete with running water and fountains-those Caliphs really knew how to cope with very hot summers.



The overall feel of old Granada is much more Islamic than Cordoba and at the foot of the steep streets is an area of traders whose shops emit scented smells (could it just be hash) and as in Crete there are hookahs set up at tables on the street. Owners seem to be North African or Lebanese in origin.

At the same time there is much evidence of feckless English in the bars-are these strays from the awful British dominated coastal resorts or are they on business?
Hard to explain the contrast between the old and the new Granada-one minute you are on a boulevarde of heavy traffic with the most spectacularly different street lights and most up to date traffic signals and then you are puffing(at least I am ) up the narrowest of cobbled streets straight out of the middle ages. What stories they could tell.



Seems that as the Islamic era declined, the Christian conquest morphed into the Renaissance and built on the shoulders of what the Moors had achieved. It was only in the 19thC that Granada was allowed to decline and although it looks more tatty than Cordoba, there is a lot of work going on such as building of a new tramway system and restoration of villas in the old town-some absolute gems with terraces looking out to infinity





and surrounded by bars for indulgence and churches for repentance.
















Walking down from the heights of the Albaicin (original Moorish town)offers the chance to meander in and down precipitous streets and take in superb views across to modern Granada and up to the Alhambra.



My head must be a whirl with all I have seen as I have been dreaming about difficult work of the past and career choice pressures-such that I am writing this at 5am-pity there is no coffee facility in the room. So back to bed for a couple of hours and then for Saturday morning in sunny Grenada. Don't you wish you were here?