View Spain and Portugal Cruise in a larger map
Sunday: At Sea
Monday: Cartagena
Tuesday: Almeria
Wednesday: Malaga with side trip to Granada. Then sail through the Straight of Gibralter.
Thursday: Cadiz
Except for Sunday, all sailing was done in the evenings and overnight. We would usually be awake in time to watch the boat sail into the port of the day.
The overwhelming highlight of this part of the trip was our visit to Granada to see the Alhambra as you will see below. (There's no point in my reporting on basic information about all these cities and sights: for that, click on the linked names above and below. This will open a window to the relevant wikipedia page. If, for example, you don't know what the Alhambra is (we dined with 2 couples aboard ship who didn't know and were not going to see it anyway!) then go to wikipedia. I'll confine my posts to describing our particular comments and observations.)
Catagena is a ship building port and home of the Spanish submarine fleet. (I think they have three.) But the most interesting aspect of Cartagena is it's ancient history. It was founded as a colony of Carthage in 228 BC: the name means "New Carthage". The Carthaginians (who were member of an ethnic group called "punics") built some defensive walls around the town, but were nevertheless defeated by the Romans only 20 years later. The archaeological sites are closed to the public on Mondays, but we took a guided tour which had arranged special access. (People from our ship who decided to walk around on their own could not get in!)
- Punic Ramparts: the remains of the Punic rampart and mausoleum (built in 227 BC with the foundation of the city) are now enclosed in a glass and steel visitors building.
- Roman Theater: Built between 5 and 1 BC this theater was discovered by accident and excavated about 30 years ago.
- Walking the streets Cartagena: There are many interesting narrow streets, full of buildings in Neoclassical, Baroque and Art Nouveau Styles. My favorite story was about this ornate building below on the right. It is still home to an exclusive club. When they refused membership to a nouveau riche silver prospector he built his even larger white house next door.
Almeria was founded by Moors in 955 AD.
Its Moorish fortress castle, Alcazaba, is built high on the hill overlooking the town and harbor. It is the second largest among the Muslim fortresses of Andalusia, after the Alhambra in Granada. Parts of the inside are restored with the kinds of water courses and pools similar to what we would see the next day at the Alhambra.
Malaga is a center of beach resort tourism in southern Spain. But we skipped all that and took the bus tour to Granada to see the famous Alhambra.
Alhambra: This world famous and sprawling mountaintop castle, fortress and extensive garden development was by far the major highlight of cruise. With its fascinating history, romantic locale, intricately decorated rooms, and numerous courtyards and fountains, this endlessly alluring palace-city has captivated visitors since the 13th century.
I'll add only a few particular personal comments:
- There is much more to see here than can be seen during a 2.5 hour guided tour. You need at least 6-8 hours.
- Dissappointingly (new word), some important areas were under renovation. Especially the Court of the Lions (pictured above). Ouch!
- It was visited by American Washington Irving in 1828. The governor of Granada preferred the convenience of living and working down in Granada. He invited Irving to stay in a suite of rooms in the Alhambra which he did for several months. Irving was inspired by his experience to write Tales of the Alhambra. The book was instrumental in reintroducing the Alhambra to Western audiences. A plaque now marks the rooms in which Irving stayed while writing some of his book. Before going I recommend that you read this book as I did. Only 99 cents on Kindle; free at gutenberg.org.
- While there I bought the book "The Alhambra and Generalife in Focus" a wonderful and comprehensive guidebook with detailed diagrams, plans, isometrics and photographs explaining everything from the geometry of Moorish decoration to the structural methods used. (The best guidebook I have ever seen on any building.) I recommend you read this also before you go. If I had, I would have stayed for a minimum of 2 days to see all I would have wanted to see.
- "Generalife" is the name of the extensive garden annex to the Alhambra. No, that doesn't mean it's sponsored by an Insurance company. It's a Spanish corruption of the arabic "Jennat al Arif" or "Garden of the architect" and pronounced "heneraleefay".
- To me, the main attractions of the Alhambra are First: The overall siting and sequences of indoor/ outdoor spaces and water features (all powered by gravity flow via aqueducts from the Sierra Nevada). While each space is strongly symmetrical about a main axis, the overall arrangement is randomly organic over uneven terrain and developed over time. Secondly, the decorative elements. I was surprised to learn than the geometic and scriptural wall decorations and ceilings are not carved stone but cast plaster!
Back to the Ship:
Gibralter: After returning to the ship we set sail to head through the Straight of Gibralter. We passed by and into the Atlantic at about 11:00 PM. They do have floodlights aimed at the main Gibralter (Prudential?) cliff so that it can be seen at night. A few little known facts about Gibralter:
- Gibralter is a British outpost situated on a skinny peninsula in the south of Spain. It has very little tourism.
- It is not the southernmost point in the Iberian peninsula nor the closest point to Africa. But it does have the highest point of land: useful in spotting approaching ships and firing canon at them. Look at this map.
- The famous cliff actually faces away from the straight to the north east. The Prudential logo shows the rock as it is viewed from the north in Spain. Make sure the map is in satellite view and notice the shadows cast, or go to Earth view and rotate to view the rock from the north.
Our next port was Cadiz, the main Atlantic port of Spain and base for all Spanish voyages of discovery and for the famous "armada". While there are a few interesting sights in Cadiz, we decided to take a bus excursion outside the city. We wanted to take the long bus tour to see Seville (and probably should have) but we were tired from the long bus tour from Malaga to Granada the previous day. So instead we opted for the shorter trip to Jerez, the home of Sherry. ("Sherry" is an English corruption of "Jerez".)
- As we were driving through Cadiz on the way to Jerez, out tour guide pointed out a large statue of Simon Bolivar astride his horse. Simon Bolivar liberated South America from Spanish colonial rule. I pointed out to her that there was no statue of George Washington in London(?) She could not explain except to say that the Spanish are a forgiving people.
Jerez is the home of several producers of Sherry. The largest is the Gonzalez Byass (an Anglo-Spanish company) which produces Tio Pepe sherry, the world's best seller. We took a tour of their impressive facility including a tasting of their dry and sweet ("cream") sherries.
We toured several enormous warehouses full of large barrels of aging sherry. The iron structure above was design by Gustave Eiffel. Each barrel here is labeled with the flag of one of the 200 odd countries there serve.
Next: I cover the Portugal Section of the trip in my next post.
No comments:
Post a Comment