For the most part during this trip, I’ve known what to expect. I know that in Madrid there are certain museums and places to go. In Toledo, Spain, I knew about the Catedral and Islam’s influence on the city.
This past weekend was a long one before the start of classes. With no program-planned excursions, a group decided to travel to Granada, the southern Spanish city where Isabel and Ferdinand are buried.
The city is also home to Alhambra.
I went without knowing much about Granada, only about Alhambra and the fact that the city is the capital of the region named Andalucia. Alhambra is a massive Arabic palace, mosque, cathedral and garden all built on top of a very large hill sometime around 1200, according to the Alhambra website.
Because of the back-and-forth warring, conquest-ing and culture clash between Moroccan and Arabic immigrants in Granada and Andalucia and Catholic Spaniards farther north, Granada and Alhambra became important heritage sites in Spain.
Thus ended the extent of my knowledge about ?Granada.
Luckily a friend on our trip had done some research and was able to walk us through key areas of Granada and explain the effects of the religious and cultural exchange, which still continues to take place.
But I would recommend going someplace where you really don’t know anything and discovering it as a completely new thing.
Alhambra is stunning — carved, big and humbling, and I appreciated it all the more because I had no idea what I was walking into. We quite literally stumbled into a sultan’s palace.
A friend’s first comment upon walking in was, “This is gorgeous. It would be better if I knew what I was standing in.”
It made discovering each new courtyard and room like an adventure. I could almost feel what Isabel must have felt hundreds of years ago, walking into her conquest and discovering she had accidentally won a national treasure.
Moreover, it felt like a truly honest way to travel and appreciate a different country’s heritage and history because I entered into it without any pretext, expectations or prejudice.
The next time you are thinking of traveling, I recommend picking a place and just going. Be a tourist and walk away feeling like you discovered something. Most likely you will.
ewenning@indiana.edu
