The Tales of The Alhambra, anyone?

On By EstherIn Real life, Richard Armitage

In two weeks time our family holiday will take us to the south of Spain, to the region of Andalusia – not be confused with the fictional place Andalasia in the movie Enchanted.

We’ll be there for 15 days and have just been going over our itinerary that Mr Esther has already been preparing…

Mr E maps

… and we came to the conclusion that we need to book some entry tickets in advance, like for the Cathedral in Seville that we want to visit and for the Alhambra in Granada. Every time The Alhambra is mentioned, I have this little line playing over and over in my head from North & South, when Fanny Thornton says “Ever since I read The Tales OF the Alhambra…” I love this scene, by the way, cracks me up every time and Jo Joyner is absolutely brilliant in it!

Anyway, our Alhambra entry tickets are booked and we were lucky, they were the last tickets available on the day that we plan to go! Now, I wonder, does anyone know whether “The Tales of the Alhambra” are worth a read or whether maybe a selection of the top 5 tales will do and what those 5 tales could be?  It’s nice to have that little North & South connection while we’re there. We won’t be going to Cadiz, where Margaret’s brother went to live, that’s a bit too far off from where we are staying, so that N&S connection will have to wait for a later time. 🙂

Oh, and when I speak of North & South I just have to also share these gifs…

Richard Armitage as John and Daniela Denby-Ashe as Margaret are still magic together, even now, 15 years after this was made…

29 thoughts on “The Tales of The Alhambra, anyone?”

  2. Esther
    What a great choice Andalusia!! That is on my list too!! If I can ask what made you all decide there this year?
    I love all the NS references too and I had no idea about the book Fanny mentions!! I learn something new all the time here!!😘❤️👍

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    1. Destination choice – we have two teens to appease, so it needed to be a sunny spot with a pool for them and some cultural history for us. We did Greece last year, we’ve been to Italy and France, Mr Esther & I have done Portugal (our honeymoon) but we’ve never really been to Spain. We searched affordable destinations and found a nice deal on this one and that happened to be the south of Spain. 🙂

      And the Tales of the Alhambra are a real thing, I’d never thought to look it up before: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_of_the_Alhambra

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    1. Thanks. Everyone I’ve been telling about Andalusia tells me it’s a gorgeous choice, I’m really looking forward to it!
      Oh, and it probably will be too hot, Rhodes in Greece was as well last year. We’ll deal. 🙂

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  4. Servetus

    Well, it’s Washington Irving (early US author I am not fond of, you may know him as the author of Rip van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, which I read in school. Blech.). I have not read the Tales of the Alhambra, but if I were going to read it, I’d read the chapters that recount Irving’s visit there rather than the ones that are pure stories he’s retelling — however, those are also stories people told him. There is an online TOC here: https://books.google.com/books/about/Tales_of_the_Alhambra.html?id=t05jR2QS3fcC

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      1. Servetus

        It might be interesting to compare your own impressions of the Alhambra with his (and think about what Fanny found so fascinating about the book), but it might also be just as much or more fun to focus on your own perceptions 🙂

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  5. Happy holidays, Esther. Sounds as if you are well-organised and will have lots of things to look at and do. Enjoy the time with your children, too – the last holiday with all of you together, now that son is 18?

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    1. The itinerary part is always Mr Esther’s thing. 🙂 He knows what we all like so tries to accomodate us all, good man.
      Yes, this might well be the last holiday with our son. Next year he will be doing an internship during the summer holidays (tourism industry study will do that to you) and what happens after that, we have no idea.

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      1. Lovely to have a planner in the family. (That kind of thing usually rests with me – I have to do all the booking and organising. Sometimes that really gets on my nerves.)
        Ah yes, sigh. They grow up and start doing their own thing. It’s great, though, that your son is already planning things that will help his career. Big thumbs up!

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        1. Actually, I search for accomodation and flights and such, he does the itinerary. Pretty good division of labour. This was born of the fact that Mr Esther is afraid of missing something and wants to make sure he doesn’t miss anything important. I’m more of a fly by the seat of my pants person when travelling. I like to know where I’m going but then play it by ear when I’m there. He leaves room for that in the itinerary as well. 🙂

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          2. Perfect division of labour! I’m the spontaneous kind, too, although I tend to read about the destination first and get an overview over what is possible. But then I like to leave it for the actual day to decide what we do. Only exception are sights that are so popular that it makes sense to book tickets ahead of time.

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  8. Pingback: Andalusian pictures – segunda parta | The Book of Esther

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