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Rasimah's FotoPage
By: Rasimah Ismail
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| Sunday, 10-Oct-2004 00:00 |
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Granada-The Beginning
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On the overnight train, just before they pulled out the bed!
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This is the bed!
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Snapping pics while quieng up in alhambra
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my dissappointed face :(
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Hehehheh... v nice indeed
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We found a halal kebab shop at the foot of alhambra hills
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Traditional clothes used during bullfighting
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small bazaars
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current government building in the streets of granada
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'incorporating christianity' after conquering granada-chess set
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wild wild west?
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One of our mission is to visit al-Himra' : red fortress (base org putihnyer al-hambra).
So we took an overnight train towards andalussia. We shared a room with foldable beds+washup basin!! And it is bloody expensive  !! Anyway we thought it was a great idea to travel considering of our constricted time factor. So we reached Granada at 9 am and the city itself were packed with both students and tourists.Our first task was to find a place to stay for the night. We set ourselves towards the base of the alhambra hill and luckily we found a room. Next was catching a red 6-seaters minibus which ran up and down the hill every 10 minutes! and there were plenty of them, with alhambra scribbled by each sides of the bus. I do recommend people to take this bus and don't ever2 contemplate on walking up/down this hill! It is not worth it! Anyway we got to the main entrance at 11 am and guess what?? Hundreds and hundreds of people were quieng up to buy the ticket  !! Couldn't believe my eye!! anyway we make a dash and joined the crowd. We waited for hours and just to entertain you guys out there  , let me tell you a bit about this beautiful place  .
Al-Ahmar (Muhammad ibn Yusof ibn Nasr :1232-1273) took an allegiance to King Fernando III and was given Granada to govern.He was a decendent of a tribe of Arabic origin governing in Jaen, and from then on the Nasrid Dynasty was founded (23 sultans lasting for a span of 254 years). They settled down on the albayzin ruins but found the hill across hold more attractions for a kingdom. Initially they built al-cazabar which is a fortress on top of the Sabika Hill (last bit of the famous Sierra Nevada mountains), and next they framed the surroundings of al-himra' with other towers, walkway for the guards and gates.Alhambra went thru a process of evolution under different rulers. Various palaces were built within the grounds after rise and fall of each sultans (such as Comares palace and the palace of the Lions) came the Christian monarchs, few adjustment and alterations were also made (the huge and imposing Charles V Palace which houses the Alhambra museum and the Fine Arts museum, also building of a cathedral next door to the main mosque).
There are still a number of key points that I wanted to tell you all about this lovely place. But let me get back to my first day in Granada. After 2 hours of quieng (and snapping pictures out boredom) they announced that the 8260 tickets for viewing the Comares Palace in a day were completely sold out!! All left were just the ground entry tickets!!.UURRGHHH!!  We were very frustrated and i blamed myself for not booking the ticket beforehand (people...take note: www.alhambratickets.com). So we went to a bank to book our tickets. yupp!! any branches of BBVA bank in Spain are apparently ticket selling agents for alhambra. Unfortunately the closest thing that we could get was 2 late evening tickets on the next 2 days!! aiyyaa!!
It was definetely the lowest point of our journey and I spent the rest of the day in the only fashion I could when Im feeling low - shopping. Managed to buy a very lovely turqoise jumper in Mango (very very very cheapcompared to UK prices!!) , discovered a marketplace and went along a colurful narrow lanes full of eastern (Moorish)and spaninsh products. And I vowed to to myself that I have to find a Zara shop somewhere in spain, specifically in Granada after this so called TRAGEDY. After following people around the city holding the renowned blue paperbag showing ZARA inscription quite literally , we managed to find a huge and jammed packed with people a 2-storey department Zara store. heheh. wut did i tell ya.... i'm a shop-a-holic. tats wut we ppl do in a crisis! oh by the way, buyers were quite ruthless in this Zara shop so watchout! It's like a big jumbo sale when ppl tried to grab everything they could- only there wasn't any sale. just normal price but surprisingly very cheap compared to UK prices!
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