And then came the Christians

We moved on from the Nasrid palaces to the part of Alhambra established by Christians after Ferdinand and Isabella conquered Granada in 1492. Normally I would love this kind of stuff but after seeing the Moorish palaces, these sites were rather bland. The views of Granada, however, were stunning.

The ceiling of a room Charles V redesigned for his wife. They never lived there.

Washington Irving wrote a book called Alhambra that I have to read now. He lived there in 1829.

View of Granada

You can see what this part of the palace looked like before Charles V redecorated.

Then the sun came out. I asked Guillermo if I could retake all my photos. I was joking. Sort of.

Old paintings they discovered behind a wall.

A tour of a nearby monastery was included with our ticket, so we set off from Alhambra with Guillermo and a few others from the tour group. Pics were not allowed within the monastery, which was actually full of nuns, not monks. They let tours come through on Wednesdays, but they don't let tourists see them, so while the place felt empty, we knew there were nuns hiding behind the walls. I think Guillermo said there were 22 living there, mostly from South America, whereas in the past they had more than 100.

More to come...