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HISTORY OF BIG SUR COAST

  A new dawn:              Locals had long called for a road along the coast to aid shipwreck victims and improve access to isolated communities.  Construction started in 1919, and 18 years, 32 tonnes of dynamite and 33 bridges later, the Big Sur stretch of California Highway One was complete.               The implausible route, with its myriad twists and turns and dramatic drop-offs, became an instant classic.  The author and painter Henry Miller fled to Big Sur in 1944 and stayed for nearly two decades.  Photographer Edward Weston and Beat Generation bard Jack Kerouac fell under its spell.  By the late 1960’s San Francisco’s counterculture revolution had swept down to Big Sur, and the likes of Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell performed on the cliff tops.              ...
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ALHAMBRA


 

Palace Contrasts:


                  The two surviving palaces present very different visions of Nasrid royal architecture.  The Comares Palace (Palacio de Comares) was built by Yusuf I and acted as the official palace for state visits and visiting dignitaries.  The Palace of the Lions (Palacios de los Leones) was added by Muhammad V in 1370, and was used as a more private residence or place of learning.

                   The Court of the Myrtles (Patio de los Arrayanes) in the Comares Palace is dominated by a central pool of still water, making this a tranquil and contemplative space.  The massive Comares Tower that houses the Hall of the Ambassadors overshadows the pool and served as the throne room.  Every part of this small, high space is covered with intricately carved plasterwork, brightly coloured wall tiles and exquisitely carved wood.  The ceiling of inlaid marquetry is arranged in seven heavens of the cosmos – a heavenly canopy to protect the earthly sovereign who sat beneath.  Carved in plasterwork below the wooden dome is a verse from the Koran known as al-mulk (kingship), which alludes to the majesty of the ruler.        

                           In the Palace of the Lions, graceful columns cluster around a central courtyard, where the intimate atmosphere is enhanced by the sound of flowing water that is never silenced.  The columns support galleries leading into two vaulted halls on the east and west, and two rooms with magnificent plaster-carved ceilings in the north and south.  One of these is the reception room of the Hall of the Kings (Sala de los Reyes).  Its domed ceiling is decorated with paintings of the Nasrid kings on stretched leather covered with gesso, a technique familiar in the contemporary Mamluk world.  At the centre of the Palace courtyard is a pure alabaster basin supported by twelve marble lions, aquamaniles that spout into marble channels to bring cooling water into each of the rooms.  Verses inscribed around the fountain’s edge praise the beneficence of the ruler and the beauty of the water that flows over the brim.

Location: Calle Real de la Alhambra, s/n, 18009 Granada, Spain

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