I celebrated my first month as blogger by experimenting with the idea that travel and fiction are synergistically satisfying by publishing a piece excerpting Philippa Gregory's The Constant Princess then adding images of the Alhambra in Granada, Spain.
Going further into the novel, Gregory lets us into the young Catalina's point of view.
Their very names are a poem: the Golden Chamber, the Courtyard of the Myrtles, the Hall of the Ambassadors, the Courtyard of the Lions, or the Hall of the Two Sisters. It will take us weeks to find our way from one exquisitely tiled room to another. It will take us months to stop marveling at the pleasure of the sound of water running down the marble gulleys in the rooms, flowing to a white marble fountain that always spills over with the cleanest, freshest water of the mountains. And I will never tire of looking through the white stucco tracery to the view of the plain beyond, the mountains, the blue sky and golden hills. Every window is like a frame for a picture: they are designed to make you stop, look, and marvel. Every window frame is like whitework embroidery—the stucco is so fine, so delicate, it is like sugar work by confectioners, not like anything real.
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| The Courtyard of the Golden Chamber (Patio de Cuarto Dorado) |
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| The vault of the Hall of the Ambassadors |
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| Too bad the Courtyard of the Lions (Patio de Leones) was right in the middle of being spruced up. |
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| The ceiling at the Hall of the Two Sisters (Sala de Dos Hermanas)
(To be continued)
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