So, this weekend we jumped the train and headed to Andalusia to see the Alhambra in Granada and the Mezquita Mosque/Cathedral at Córdoba.  This is our farthest trip from our home base in Madrid so far and the first one where we had to make overnight arrangements.  That meant we had our first chance to use our Hosteling International membership!  Of course, after we made the arrangements, we forgot and left our cards behind.  But the hostel proprietors were nice and believed that we were members.

Our first stop was Granada.  Our tickets for the Alhambra were for the afternoon, so we decided to tool around Granada for the other sights it had to offer before we made the climb to the walled Moorish enclave.

Granada was the last stronghold held by the Moors in the Iberian Peninsula, so it was the site of Ferdinand and Isabella’s great victory in driving them out.  As a consequence, they decided to be buried there.  We spent the morning visiting the Granada Cathedral of Kings.  We attempted to get into the Royal Chapel see their tombs, but apparently EVERYONE wants to go see the tombs of Ferdinand and Isabella.  There was at least a half-hour line outside.  We decided we didn’t need to see the tombs that badly and satisfied ourselves with visiting the cathedral and looking at pictures.

The cathedral itself was plenty pretty:

Catedral Real

Inside the cathedral there were a number of choir books on display.  It was fun to look at sheet music from the 1500s.

Cathedral Choir Books

The choir books are very large.  They are intended to be displayed on a stand so that the choir can see the music while they are singing.  It’s surprising to me how little information seems to be stored there in comparison to modern music.  It was essentially just notes and words, and the note lengths don’t even seem to be all that clear to me.  No dynamic indicators or any of the rest of the notation I’m used to seeing.  Perhaps the choir looked to their director for that sort of thing.  Or perhaps they just memorized it.

After the Cathedral of Kings, we strolled along the road bordering the Alhambra and visited the Arab Baths.

Arab Baths

This baths predate the Alhambra (1100s – 1300s I think) and are some of the best-preserved Arab baths in Spain.  Their purpose is very similar to Roman baths.  They were places of socializing and ceremonial cleansing for religious purposes.

That seemed like a lot of sightseeing already, and we hadn’t even seen the Alhambra.  Stay tuned for another post on that!