Well, we made it back to our starting point on the top of the hill and crossed through this wall that separates the Alhambra from the Generalife. It was at this point I had to swallow a couple of painkillers for my knee and feet because I really wanted to keep going and see these world famous gardens.
Apparently, Generalife is roughly translated to mean The Architect's Garden. It is pronounced "gener - ral - eef - ay". It includes the Palaces of the Generalife and their upper and lower gardens, including vegetable gardens and orchards, and the integrated water system. It was constructed to be the recreation area of the Kings of Granada, where they escaped from their official routine.
Here is King Paul escaping from his official routine!
As I have said before, the water in all of these vessels and pools is constantly moving through an overall, gravity fed system.
From Generalife, on one side of the ravine, the Alhambra can be clearly seen spilling around and down the other side of the hill, with orchards and vegetable gardens in the area between.
The key structural and decorative elements of the Generalife gardens are cypress, rose, myrtle and pine. The clipped hedges are myrtle, like our own vast array of melalucas. The other myrtle is the crepe myrtle, both the old and new varieties. The cypress is hedged in various shapes (as above) or grown as tall, pointed single trees. And the pine is mediterranean pine - huge and old. Roses are standard or climbing with a few bushes.
There are also citrus trees growing and fruiting everywhere, mostly oranges but also lemons and others I couldn't identify. There are no spray or sprinkler systems in the gardens (too much evaporation), but they are starting to install drippers in difficult areas. The traditional system of flooding section by section of the terraces, is still used.
And then we climbed up and up and up again. Remember my claim that everything worth seeing in Europe is at the top of a flight of stairs ... so true!
And here we are at last. This is the reason we have come all this way to the south of Spain. This is the famous Court of the Water Channel in the Generalife Palace. This is the one in all the advertising and on all the postcards.
I must say that I was a little bit disappointed and entirely underwhelmed. I think I expected it to be a bit more "glossy" or "classy" or "classical". Don't get me wrong, it was beautiful. But if I was the head gardener it would look better, especially the hedging and the plant selection.
And this is from the other end.......
And yet more in Part 5.
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