Europe Travel Diary – Part II – The Alhambra
Previously: Part I – Madrid
We caught at 7:40 train from Madrid and arrived in Granada about 4.5 hours later. From the train station we took a taxi to our hotel, Hotel America, which is on the grounds of the Alhambra. After checking in we took a bus back down into town for lunch and a visit to the Royal Chapel (with the tombs of Isabella and Ferdinand). Then we took another bus up to the San Nicolas viewpoint on a hill facing the Alhambra. It was great to see The Alhambra from a distance to really take in it’s magnitude. We went to bed that night eagerly anticipating our visit of the Alhambra the next day.
Here’s a brief history lesson: The Alhambra is a Moorish palace built in the 12th century. At one point 2,000 Muslims lived within the Alhambra’s walls. When the Catholics conquered Granada in 1492 they took control of the Alhambra. There are four main points of interest within the Alhambra. (1) The Alcazaba: the original castle/fort on the hill. It’s mostly in ruins now (although several towers still stand) but it was once the main defence point of the Alhambra. (2) Palacios Nazaries (Nazrid Palace): this is the Moorish royal palace and the highlight of the Alhmabra. The rooms and halls have intricate stucco work and amazing geometric tile patterns. The courtyards have beautiful fountains and the whole thing is amazingly preserved. (3) Charles V’s Palace: Built by the conquering king but never finished it’s a square building with a circular courtyard that was meant to be topped by a dome. (4) The Generalife Gardens: These gardens once fed the residents of the Alhambra. The sultan also had a summer palace here.
Since we had an afternoon entry time we couldn’t pick up our tickets and enter the grounds until 2pm. Our first stop was The Alcazaba. Next we got in line for our 3pm entry into the Palacios Nazaries. They let 300 people in every half hour in increments of 50 every 5 minutes. We took our time walking through the palace trying to take it all in. I don’t think I can find words to do justice to the palace’s architecture, design and beauty. I was most impressed with the geometric tile patterns. They were amazingly well preserved. After the palace we toured the Generalife Gardens and then walked back through the grounds to the Charles V’s palace. What a day!
After our visit we had dinner and the Parador San Francisco Hotel right next door to our hotel (but 2.5 times more expensive per night!). The meal was excellent and served on a patio overlooking the buildings of the Generalife under a full moon! I ordered from the vegetarian menu and had pumpkin and kidney bean soup and vegetable paella. I’m still dreaming about that soup and will have to try and recreate it at some point!
Our visit to the Alhambra was the highlight of the trip for me. The rest of my Alhambra pictures can be seen here.
Next: Part III – Gribaltar
Marathon Training – Week 8 – Hamstring rehab
Last week I mentioned that I was having some problems with my left quad and my right hamstring. Well the story of this week is hamstring rehab. Monday was a scheduled rest day and I continued to ice and stretch out my legs. Tuesday morning I had 3x1mi speedwork scheduled. I considered moving it to Thursday and maybe in hindsight I should have. Anyway I warmed up slowly and got the workout done but I could feel that my legs were not 100%. I held back, especially in the last two repeats because my right hamstring was sore/tight and I was afraid that if I pushed it too far bad things would happen. My repeat times quickly became irrelevant and I moved fully into hamstring rehab mode.
I did not go the the gym on Wednesday morning. Instead I did some light yoga and stretching at home and then iced my hamstrings. Wednesday afternoon I bought ibuprofen (because believe it or not my previous bottle had expired before I finished it!) and got on an anti-inflammatory schedule. That’s in addition to the icing and piriformis relaxation schedules I was on! Thursday I had a 6 mile easy run on the schedule but I cut it short and only did 3.3 miles. My hamstring felt OK as long as I ran quite slowly but I didn’t want to push things. I continued the icing and anti-inflammatories through Thursday and Friday. I had basically no pain walking around during the day on Friday. I decided that if I could make the 30 min (1.5mi/2.4km) walk home from school on Friday afternoon without any pain then I could attempt my long run on Saturday. Otherwise I would have to push it to Sunday (or later). Fortunately that wasn’t necessary.
I had an ambitious plan for my Saturday 18 miler. Ambitious in that it wouldn’t be easy to bail out mid route because I wouldn’t be close to home. I decided to attempt it anyway. I took a bus downtown (actually two buses since the Fremont Bridge somehow got stuck open and everyone on the bus had to get off and walk up to the Aurora Bridge to get another bus downtown) and then another bus to Leschi Park. From there I ran south along Lake Washington for 2.5 miles then turned around and ran the final 10 miles of the marathon route (see below). Then I ran home for an additional 5.5 miles.
I took the first few miles super slowly and was pleasantly surprised that my hamstring felt totally fine. In fact my right felt no different from my left. Eventually my legs tired but that’s completely normal for me on a long run. Success.
This morning’s recovery run was good. I took several walk breaks to keep my heart rate in check. Still, I feel like I’m walking a fine line with my hamstrings right now. I’m running the Royal Victoria half marathon next Sunday. My goal is to do the half at my goal marathon pace (9:09 min/mile). I’m pretty psyched to run the race because I feel as though I haven’t run a race in forever (OK it’s been 3.5 months). I just don’t want to do anything to compromise my marathon so I will be watching my hamstrings closely. And I think lower body weight lifting may have to stop since that’s what got me in the predicament in the first place!
| 29/09 | - | Rest day |
| 30/09 | 7.0 miles | Speedwork: 3x1mi in 7:59/8:06/8:10 min |
| 01/10 | XT | Light yoga & ab work |
| 02/10 | 3.3 miles | Easy run: avg 156 bpm, 12:07 min/mile |
| 03/10 | - | Rest day |
| 04/10 | 18.0 miles | Long run: avg 168 bpm, 11:13 min/mile |
| 05/10 | 5.0 miles | Recovery run: avg 156 bpm, 12:09 min/mile |
| Total | 33.3 miles | YTD: 917.3 miles |
Europe Travel Diary – Part I – Madrid
In September my mother and I took an 11 day vacation to Spain, Gibraltar and Portugal. Over the next couple of weeks I’ll be posting my pictures and travel diary.
I left my apartment ridiculously early in the morning on Wednesday September 10. I literally caught the first bus of the morning from my neighbourhood to downtown and then took an express bus to the airport. Originally I’d been scheduled on an 11:50am SEA – YYZ flight. I’ve been scheduled on this flight before and every single time they’ve canceled the flight and moved me to the 8am departure. This left me with a super long (OK it was only 6 hours) layover in the Toronto airport. Luckily my Dad was able to give me a lounge coupon and the time passed quickly enough. I met Mom at the gate and we boarded our flight to Madrid. I had dinner on the flight and then used my red wine & Gravol method of sleep induction (I figure my liver can handle the occasional challenge). I probably got 4 hours of sleep before we landed in Madrid.
We got into our hotel room at about 12:30. We were both pretty tired so decided to take naps and set my watch alarm for 14:00. We slept through the alarm but woke up at 14:30 anyway. We then set out to get some lunch the highlight of which was the 1 euro mini desserts. Mom had a small slice of cheesecake with cherry topping and I had a scoop of vanilla ice cream with brownie bits and chocolate sauce. I should have taken a picture they were so cute.
Then we tried to visit the Royal Palace. Unfortunately after walking all the way there we discovered that the palace was closed. We assume there must have been some event going on. Fortunately we knew would have several more opportunities to make it to the palace. It’s supposed to be third only to Versailles and Schonbrunn!
After the palace disappointment we went back to our hotel for nap number two and then off to the train station to get our Euro Rail passes validated and to get reservations on the one leg of our trip on a regional train. After finding the right place we ended up having to wait about 45 minutes for our number to be called. We were both very tired by the end of the day so we picked up a sandwich at the station for dinner and turned in for the night.
We spent the morning of our second day in Madrid at the Prado Museum. This seems to be the main tourist attraction in Madrid and houses and impressive collection of paintings. Our strategy was to get the audio guide and try to see the 50 or so masterpieces listed on the map. The highlights included: The Garden of Delights, Las Meninas and the pair of paintings the Nude Maja and the Clothed Maja.
After a nice lunch in the museum cafeteria (Spanish torta and salad) we walked through the Royal Botanical Gardens. This is a museum of plants and was a nice quiet place to wander. September might not have been the optimal time to visit but it was neat to see all the different species.
For dinner we went to a Rick Steves recommended restaurant and had a three course meal which came with unlimited wine. We felt sort of odd sitting with two bottles of wine (one red one white) on our table! After dinner we headed back to our hotel to get a good nights rest before our 7:40 train to Granada the next morning.
Next: Part II – The Alhambra