Today was all about visiting the many viewpoints around the Albaicin district but before doing so we had a couple of places to visit. The Albaicin is the first area of the city that was populated during the Islamic and Roman periods, and was recognised by UNESCO as a World Heritage site a few years after the Alhambra was. The layout of the area is very Moorish with quite plain looking houses facing the street surrounding wonderful courtyards. Our first visit was to the House of Zara which was built in the 14th century with all rooms facing the courtyard and very few windows facing the street, as you walk around inside you have wonderful views of the Alhambra through what would be the roof if they didn’t have an open courtyard. This is now an ‘interpretive centre’ which basically seems to mean that it is empty but they have some really good photos of what the area would have looked like over the ages. From here we walked round to El Banuelo which is said to be the oldest and best preserved Arab baths in Spain. It has three halls and a small courtyard, the cold, tepid and warm halls were built using reclaimed Roman components. Each room contained a screen that allowed you to see what the rooms would have been like when in use and interestingly despite the fact that they are no longer in use and definitely no fires going, once we had been inside the warm room working our way back outside to the cold room did feel definitely colder! We then decided to start the walk I had worked out, they say the best way to explore the Albaicin district is to get lost in it which is actually a good thing as we took a number of wrong turns but the roads were fascinating and all so jumbled! The first couple of viewpoints provided fantastic views of the Alhambra you forget how close together everything is as the buildings are quite tall. In the complex of roads there are small squares, not with parks or benches but mostly with Aljibes, these are water tanks that ether seem to be small where you could only fill a small bucket or quite large where it looks like you could drive a car into them. These are no longer in use but have not been destroyed which is nice. The area is also full of convents, when the christians took control of the city they took over most of the mosques and seemed to either convert them into churches or convents. We stoped at the San Nicolas lookout to have something to drink as although the temperature is lower today than it was yesterday it feels hotter, either that or all this walking up hill is hard work in 34 degrees. We then continued and the next set of viewpoints looked out over the town and the countryside beyond very different views to the Alhambra. At one point we found a bit of the wall and a gate but then we lost the trail we should have been following so had to revert to the map on the phone to get back on course. A couple of hours later and after much wondering down streets lined with whitewashed walls we then ended up on the slightly more tourist route as we found ourselves looking at the view with a coach party disembarking behind us! Luckily they were not going the same way as us so we set off down a big flight of steps and finally reached the last view point at Mirador de la Lona, this is near one of the old gates but unfortunately it is no longer in use, just round from here was a square that had a restaurant so we decided to stop for some well earned lunch, we had tapas and a lot of water and realised that we were actually only about 200 yards from the hotel (as the crow flies) but we had to go down a lot of stairs to get there which we did arriving back in the room about 4.30. It was then a case of jumping in the shower to get rid of the layers of suntan cream we have on, a relax and update the website before heading off out this evening for something to eat.
