The Alhambra!

Welcome back to our blog about Spain! We just made it to Valencia just a few hours ago. Today we went on a trip to a fortress and learned about it's history, for example castle guards would sit right behind the doors. They had a lot of tactics to help defend the castle. And they had a lot of violent techniques to fight off intruders including boiling sand and right angle corners that forced right handed warriors to leave themselves wide open to slaughter when trying to fight their way in.

This was the Alhambra at Granada, an amazing huge fortress with ghost stories and history and fables and mythical happenings. We walked up and down hills and hundreds of stairs to see the most amazing views of Granada. We crossed through old Roman ruins of houses, and a monumental structure build to honor Charles V and his great victory. Our tour guide spoke volumes about the meaning of all the art and sculpture and the wild happenings within the fortress. We learned so much about Islamic law and prayer practice and the symbols of the hand and they key and reflecting pools. Then we walked up more stairs to the gardens that were magnificent. Our guide told us that the Alhambra is about two things: POWER and PARADISE. So after we experienced the harsh defensive mechanisms of power, the gardens showed us paradise--reflecting pools and hundreds of colorful flowers and gorgeous views and terraces where people would lie on rugs and read poetry and hear music and sip tea among the fragrant wisteria and magnolia trees. It was an amazing place.

After that we got on the bus for Valencia. It was a long ride, but we broke it up by stopping at a Spanish truck stop, and then rehearsing the National anthem on the bus for our upcoming gig with the Valkyries.

When we arrived in Valencia we were greeted at our hotel with an authentic Valencian Paella dinner and then wrote postcards home.

Tomorrow we will explore Valencia and get ready for concert number two...if we can only figure out how the showers work in our rooms...