Granada

I watched her trudging up the hill this little girl with the bulging backpack that was larger than she was. Very colourful I thought looking at her pink T shirt, lime green skirt with blue edging round the hem, white tights with red and black polka dots and heavy clunky walking shoes. The enormous backpack covered more than half her body dwarfing this determined little creature. She strode purposely upwards following her mother who had already turned the corner of the narrow alley.
My young friend did not notice the pink and red bouganville hanging over the dazzling white walls on either side of her. She didn’t notice the red tomatoes above her head as she kept her eyes downwards on the grey cobbled path avoiding the debris in her way.
“Where is she going?” I wondered as I followed the child round the corner.
“Wow Amazing Fantastic!” I heard myself cry out as, in front of me, loomed the wonderful vista of the apricot sandstoned Palace of the Alhambra with its flags flapping in the slight breeze and gleaming despite the heat haze surrounding it.
San Nicholas is a beautiful square in Albacin reached by hiking up narrow streets past white washed houses with flat red tiled roof tops and roof gardens of the Arab quarter of Granada. The noise of the city traffic disappears as you move slowly up the steep hill, puffing and panting, and is replaced by the sound of guitars being softly strummed from the balconies of these Moorish homes. Overhead the washed sheets hang over the railings drying in the strong sun. The doors and windows are guarded by heavy ornately carved wooden shutters behind iron barred windows protecting the occupants from the threat of the casual thief or nosy passerby.
A myriad of smells assaults your senses from the sweet smelling jasmine climbing up the walls to the smell of cat pee pervading cat alley an aptly named little street.

The square is overlooked by the austeer San Nicholas church built in 1525 on the site of a former mosque and the view from the square is one of the most spectacular in Albacin as in the far distance you can see the Sierra Nevada and the entire city is at your feet. The Alhambra with its many towers takes its rightful place in front of you bursting out of the tree lined hill.
The square in front of the church is cobbled and dotted with tall bushes and there is a little wall where people from every country sit, enjoy and photograph the famously fabulous view.
I sat with them on the low wall silently looking across the roof tops at the spectacular view.
My little friend deposited her rucksack on the ground beside her mother and ran to the wall beside me.