April 30th

Today we leave Granada for Costa Del Sol on the sunny coast as they say here.

A little way out of Granada we visit the Alhambra which is the most visited place in Spain. They allow 8000 people per day to visit and it is spectacular. We have a four hour guided visit here.

The Alhambra(with silent H) was where the Muslims lived from 7 – 14^th century. Arabic life was not viewed from the outside. We had to go inside the walls.

The Muslims did not think anything existed past this point and that the world ended with Spain.

The walls are covered in beautiful glazed tiles and the intricate walls are made from stucco moulds using water, plaster, alabaster and marble powder and plaster is used to attach them to the cornices and walls. Originally these were then painted with colours such as blue, red and gold. Some areas we saw had a faint blue still showing. The ceilings are cedar wood.

Throne room was the most important room. The Sultan received ambassadors and other important people here. He sat in front of the light and could see his visitor clearly which gave him the advantage.

The walls were covered in the Koran, poems and stories of battles. One particular on was repeated regularly. It is read right to left and says “There is no conqueror but God”.

It was here that Queen Isabella gave Columbus the documents that enabled him to travel to find America. It was joked by both our guides that this was the first traveller’s cheque written.

We visited the private rooms of the Sultan and the harem. The private rooms had the most beautiful ceilings in the Alhambra. There is a very important painting on the ceiling that they cannot work out how to restore as it is done on leather.

The Sultan was allowed four wives and as many concubines as they wanted. Just one was the Sultana and that was the first wife to give him a boy child.

We walked through the bathes, the medina, the Summer Palace and the most amazing gardens. The Summer Palace was outside the Alhambra and we walked through the Paradise Gardens. The Summer Palace was just for relaxing no work done here.

We then left the Alhambra to finish our journey to Costa Del Sol.

This is an important area for growing olives. There are 24 million trees and 60% of world’s requirement of olive oil is produced by Spain. Olives were introduced by the Greeks originally. Twenty five percent is produced here in Andalucía. The Arabs refined the process to get the most oil out of the olives. They take 5 – 10 years to bear fruit and continue to produce fruit for up to 150 years of age. It is a bi-annual crop with one year producing 25kgs per tree and the other year 50kgs. It is a crop that requires irrigation with the trees being watered every 10 days.

Malaga is near Costa del Sol and it where Picasso was born. It has a very busy airport with flights going everywhere in Europe.

We arrive in Costa del Sol and I must say even though it sounds exotic it is nowhere near as gorgeous as our sunny coast. Once again the beach is comprised of dark sand come rock. There are no tides and no waves. The water was still very cold even though the temperature was quite hot. We visited Mijas up in the hills from Costa del Sol in the afternoon. It was a picturesque town where all of the houses have to be painted white. There are red geraniums potted in blue pots against the while walls. Donkey power is popular here. We had a nice dinner out where we tried fried anchovies and other tapas dishes, sea bass baked in salt and dessert.

The next day was a free day for us so we found our way up into another part of the town to do our laundry. While we waited for the washing and drying to be done we enjoyed two glasses of wine, three beers and three lots of tapas for 10 euro. The Laundromat cost 8 euro. Good value I think?? We had freshly caught sea bass cooked on a sword over coals for dinner.