Chapter 4: 3 days in Al-Andalus

Fearless Young American: "Show me. No! You can't even see I'm on a ledge!"

Fearless Young American was, indeed, on a ledge, overlooking a perhaps 20 metre drop.

Concerned Australian, envisioning pieces of broken young American splattered down the sides of the Alhambra and unable to keep his mouth shut: "Hey. Don't die for a selfie, ok?"

Anxious Young American, who was trying to take her fearless friend's picture: "Exactly, that happens you know. People really do die..."

Concerned Australian: "Every week, in places just like this."

Fearless Young American, perhaps now ever so slightly less fearless: "Just hurry up and take the shot!"

Anxious Young American, grateful for an ally: "I really wish you weren't doing this..."

Concerned Australian, increasingly bemused by the scene playing out before him: "Don't you talk. You're enabling her by taking the picture."

Anxious Young American: "..."

Fearless Young American: "Did you take the photo?" Fearless Young American hops down from the ledge, as a Concerned and Bemused Australian takes a deep breath. "Let me see. That's better. If I'm going to risk my life for a photo you have to take a good one!"

Bemused Australian: "..."

Anxious Young American: "That was so scary!"

Fearless Young American: "Oh, and you think I was just chilling, do you?"

******

This Bemused Australian is pleased to confirm that no fearless young American blood was spilt during his visit to the Alhambra. That wasn't for lack of temptation, though.

I mean, we all want to share something of our travels. I despise pictures of myself - to the best of my knowledge only one exists from the past two years that wasn't taken for official purposes - and this blog is at least partly a substitute for the selfie thing. It's a filtered account of what I'm seeing and doing, curated to emphasise the things I want it to, and metaphorically deleting the images where you can't see that I'm on a ledge. I promise, though, that I will not risk my life for the sake of a good travel story, and nor will I go out of my way to do something I wouldn't otherwise do, just in pursuit of a good story.

I increasingly wonder how many people could say the same. Here we were, myself, the Americans with mismatched existential threat perceptions and a whole bunch of other people who had gone a long way out of their way to see the Alhambra, a world heritage-listed, eighth wonder of the world. As well as drinking in the setting and the architecture, I engaged in a little bit of people watching. And the number of people rushing from backdrop to backdrop for their next long-list candidate for Facebook profile picture was downright depressing.

Take a couple, sure, I get that. But what is the marginal benefit gained from the 10th, 11th and 12th selfie of the day? Google Images has probably made redundant the old-fashioned travel photos, where you take pictures of things you saw to show people when you got home. But I can't imagine that people are clamouring to scroll through an album of 100 shots of the exact same fake smile or seductive pose, with the only difference being the out-of-focus landmark in the background, either.

I should probably go back to the beginning. The Alhambra is in Granada, Southern Spain, which survived until 1492 as the last holdout of Islamic Spain - Al-Andalus - as the Catholic monarchs progressively pushed them out. It was here that the last Moorish king surrendered to Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon (the ultimate 15th century power couple, like the Clintons, but imagine Hillary had some help from parentage to overcome rampant misogyny). It's a place that I've wanted to visit for as long as I can remember.

It almost didn't happen.

Think about the last time you made a booking on Ticketmaster. The confusing seating plans probably annoyed you and the outrageous transaction fee will surely have infuriated you. But these are as nothing compared to trying to buy tickets to a bucket list destination that you know will sell out - in fact, it's sold out into May already - and the website having a borderline xenophobic hatred of Australian credit cards. I tried Mastercards from three different institutions - for some reason I only ever seem to have Mastercards - without the site accepting any of them. I tried my girlfriend's Visa card, without success.

The internet said that Spanish Ticketmaster only has this problem with Australian cards, but surely Australians visit the Alhambra? More online digging revealed that some Amex cards, some of the time, have had luck. I don't have an Amex card, but I had a dim memory of a friend paying for our lunch out with one. And when you're desperate, the best thing to do is reach out to your friends.

The hero of this story, who not only managed to process the transaction but then obstinately (and very generously) refused to accept payment for it, shall remain nameless but may identify himself in comments as he wishes. But I value his trust, for this sorry saga wasn't yet even nearly over. You can't print out an Alhambra ticket ahead of time. You have to use the ticket machines at the entry, where you have to scan the card you used to buy the ticket before you can collect it.

I was obviously not going to be carrying my friend's Amex around Europe for seven months, so it was back to the internet. Apparently plan D, after failing to get your own cards to work, failing to get your girlfriend's card to work and having to phone a friend with an excruciatingly uncomfortable request, was to present a photocopy of the card in question to the staff at the Alhambra. And the cardholder's photo ID. And a signed letter from the cardholder authorising me to collect the ticket. And my own passport, just for good measure.

You have to be there at least an hour before your ticket time opens, or you're told you won't get in, except that the ticket office only opens an hour before your ticket time so what they're really telling you is to hang around in an empty courtyard for a while. But don't think about using the time to buy something to eat or to use the bathroom, because those both close half an hour before the ticket window opens.

Ferdinand and Isabella got into the Alhambra more easily than this.

Fortunately, once I'd jumped through a couple of hundred hoops that could have been prevented by having a website that doesn't hate Australians and that emails tickets like every other bloody ticket agency in the developed world, I finally had my ticket. I'd bought an 'Alhambra Experiences' pass that allowed me to visit the crown jewel of the site, the Nazrid Palace, at night and then visit the other palaces, the fortress and gardens that make up the rest of the citadel the next day.

After my experience in Madrid, it was good to have a nice night for it:

I admit that I moved through the Nazrid Palace a little faster than it deserved. Partly that was a knee management issue, but I'd also managed to get myself to first in the queue to go in once it opened, and that meant that as long as I kept ahead of the madding crowd I would have that rare tourism luxury: photos without anybody else in them. I didn't rush myself, though, and I took the time to soak in the most beautiful building I have ever entered. I don't know that my photos do it justice, but they are my best effort:

The next day was also very Alhambra-centric. In the morning I went back to see the Alcazaba - the military part of the citadel - and Generalife palace. The Alcazaba has an enviable view:

See, I don't mind snow when it's at a safe distance like that.

The Generalife was apparently the sultans' holiday home, of sorts, despite being only a 10 minute walk through the gardens from their main palace. But it must have been good to get away from it all, I guess. It's pretty, but I was let down here by a complete failure of collective action.

There's an iconic view of the gardens of this palace, which feature a series of fountains from one end of the courtyard to another. But you can't get a halfway decent photo of this because of the hordes of people at both ends of the courtyard, all trying to get a halfway decent photo. If people would only have the sense to stick to one end of the courtyard, nobody would be clogging up anybody else's background. If only I could have unionised and organised that crowd.

I also went to the Granada cathedral - a grandiose statement that this had become Catholic territory - but really my one and a half days here were all about the Alhambra. After a siesta at the hostel (when in Spain...), I ventured to the Albaicin district: the old Islamic part of the city, with the best Alhambra views. My plan was to find dinner and then a good vantage point to take photos of the palace as the sun set. I think I did OK with the vantage point:

Dinner wasn't half-bad either. I went to a restaurant directly below the lookout where I took that photo, and got a window seat. €12.50 is more than I would spend usually, but I had a vegetarian lasagna that stretched from the tip of my little finger to the thumb of my out-stretched hand. That's my hand, not a tiny Donald Trump-sized hand. It was a big lasagna. The biggest. Huge. Believe me. And it came with a view that would add $100 a plate to the cost of your meal in Australia.

Day three was rather more gruelling, involving an early morning bus that moved glacially slowly through Andalusia, covering 201km from Granada to Cordoba in a little over three motion-sickness inducing hours. The reward at the end was more rain, and being told by an American couple that the reason I'd gone there - the Mesquita - wouldn't open for another four hours.

That didn't ring true to me. If they handed out PhDs for researching and planning holidays you'd be calling me Dr Goodman by now (assuming I can prove out my hypotheses, which I guess means surviving this trip unscathed and not bankrupt). If the Mesquita was closed until 3:30PM on a Monday I'd have known about it. Sure enough, I fronted at about 1 and got in without any trouble., managing to capture the following before my camera battery gave out:

The Mesquita  was originally the central mosque in Cordoba; which was the largest city in Europe during the Islamic period and home to its biggest university. When it was a mosque it was open on all sides and the interior consisted of 900 of those arches. When the Spanish conquered Cordoba the Catholics essentially said 'this is nice, we'll have it' and plonked a cathedral inside.

I do hope those Americans found a pleasant way to unnecessarily kill four hours. I had a fair bit of time myself, so I wandered aimlessly about Cordoba's old town. I wasted half an hour on the Museum of Al-Andalus Life, which boiled down to about eight exhibits accompanied by an audio guide, in which a BBC radio voice extol the virtues of religious tolerance in medieval Islamic Spain. An important message, but presented in amateurish fashion.

I only had the afternoon in Cordoba before boarding my bullet train to Valencia. Let's just build one of these things in Australia. Now please. I don't care how, I want it now. I don't even really care where it goes. I just want one.