This was really long back, in the summer of 2009. My friend Denise and I decided to take a trip to Spain and Portugal.

Everything was set and our tickets were booked .. and then on a friend’s recommendation, we decided to make a last minute addition to our list of places to visit.  The addition was Granada – a small town in Spain with a huge palace called Alhambra. The friend who insisted that we visit Granada also mentioned that it was the only place in Spain where we would find Arabic architecture.

Well, as soon as we saw what she wanted us to see, we were mesmerized.

Here are a few pictures we took. Hope you like them. And below is a little more Wikipedia information about this place, in case you decide to explore further after seeing the pics.

Photos from Alhambra

Photos taken in Granada after the Alhambra visit

Granada is a city and the capital of the province of Granada, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, at the confluence of three rivers, the Beiro, the Darro and the Genil.

The Alhambra, a Moorish citadel and palace, is in Granada. It is the most renowned building of the Andalusian Islamic historical legacy with its many cultural attractions that make Granada a popular destination among the touristic cities of Spain. The Alhambra was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1984.

The Alhambra was so called because of its reddish walls (in Arabic, («qa’lat al-Hamra’» means Red Castle).  It is located on a strategic point, with a view over the whole city and the meadow, and this fact leads to believe that other buildings were already on that site before the Muslims arrived. The complex is surrounded by ramparts and has an irregular shape.

In the 11th century the Castle of the Alhambra was developed as a walled town which became a military stronghold that dominated the whole city. But it was in the 13th century, with the arrival of the first monarch of the Nasrid dynasty, Mohammed I ibn Nasr (Mohammed I, 1238–1273), that the royal residence was established in the Alhambra. This marked the beginning of its heyday. The Alhambra became palace, citadel and fortress, and was the residence of the Nasrid sultans and their senior officials, including servants of the court and elite soldiers (13th-14th centuries).