A week in Spain

It's taken me a bit of time to appreciate all that we saw in a week. The inland plateau of Spain is so very different from anywhere else in Europe I've been to. It reminded me of Australia - the dry red earth, sparse vegetation, big blue skies - or the mid West of the USA - wind eroded rocks, empty roads, ramshackle half abandoned villages. Then as we got further south, there were olives as far as the eye could see, making mathematically precise patterns across the hillsides. I did a few Doodles on my iPod Touch:

The last doodle is my impression of our last day - we had a long drive back, but within 15 mins of setting off we hit quite heavy snow, crossing a high plateau on small country roads, the car started to skid and I thought we were lost!

The highlight of the visit was the Alhambra in Granada. The workmanship in the Nasrid Palace was just awesome! Every surface was decorated, with intricate carvings in plaster or stone, and tessellated ceramics on the floors and lower walls.

 

I was a bit confused to read that originally all this decoration was coloured red, yellow and blue. That would have made it overpoweringly sombre, whereas now, the pale ivory walls give texture and light. The busyness of the incredibly complex patterns is calmed by the uniform colour of the  plaster.

Aparently a British architect called Owen Jones studied the decoration of the Alhambra palaces in detail in the 1880s and was very influential in persuading Victorian interior decorators to adopt the Moorish colour schemes.  

I was interested to find patterns in the pebbled courtyard which reminded me of Celtic patterns: 

I want to do something similar on our terrace now, but I need to find some good pebbles...