Our Visit To Spain (Sep 2nd - Sep 11th, 2000)

I threw together this page and the ones under it over a weekend. It still needs a lot of work. For one the pictures are out of order for the cities we visited, because the program I used to generate the pages didn't alphabetize the pictures first--must be a bug. Also, every picture we took is here (except the 35mm), none have been removed (yet), so there are some that aren't too good.

Please click the thumbnails on the left to go to the page.

Toledo

We flew into Madrid then immediately rented a car and drove to Toledo. This city was the Capital of Spain before Madrid some centuries ago. There are two bridges one built about the year 800, which has been restored, and the other was built around the year 1000 which has never been restored. We have pictures of the second bridge and a castle near it. You will also see the only McDonald's in Toledo (can't leave home without one). The roads are called bean roads, because they are made out of small stones shaped like beans--hell on the tires.

Granada

After two days in Toledo we drove to Granada which is close to the Southern shore of Spain. All of the pictures are of or taken from the Alhambra. The Alhambra is an Islamic palace. Here's a Commentary my wife found on the web at: Great Buildings Online
"On a hill overlooking Granada, the Alhambra-a sprawling palace-citadel that comprised royal residential quarters, court complexes flanked by official chambers, a bath, and a mosque-was begun in the thirteenth century by Ibn al-Ahmar, founder of the Nasrid dynasty, and was continued by his successors in the fourteenth century. Its most celebrated portions-a series of courtyards surrounded by rooms-present a varied repertoire of Moorish arched, columnar, and domical forms. The romantic imagination of centuries of visitors has been captivated by the special combination of the slender columnar arcades, fountains, and light-reflecting water basins found in those courtyards-the Lion Court in particular; this combination is understood from inscriptions to be a physical realization of descriptions of Paradise in Islamic poetry."

-Marvin Trachtenberg and Isabelle Hyman. Architecture: from Prehistory to Post-Modernism. p219.

Madrid

Okay, you say! Where are the photos of Madrid. Yup, my wife had to be at awards ceremonies most of the time we were there, so you get a lot of pictures of the Madrid Zoo and my daughter. The three of us went to the Prado, an art museum of world famous repute with holdings from people like Goya, El Grecco, and Velasquez. There are also photos of ancient marble and bronze full figure carvings.

Carl J. Nobile

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