Andalusia 2019 - Part 10 - the Alhambra

The reason for our prompt departure from Antequera was that we had tickets to enter the Alhambra in the afternoon. 

Much like the Alcazar in Seville, it's the sort of place where you stick to your slot. 

It didn't feel as busy, but I think that's because it's built over a much bigger area. A much, much bigger area. There's a reason it's described as the Alhambra complex in lots of books. 

The Alhambra was the main reason we went on holiday to Spain. Mum had always wanted to go, and spurred on by her friend J's wise words of advice to "just go for it," I decided to take her. It was totally worth it. 

The route the guide took us in took us via the Palace of Charles V (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Charles_V), which was very impressive, even if it didn't fit it with anything else.

   

We wandered through the Alhambra at quite a pace, so yes, this is also on the "to be revisited" list. 

The Alhambra pays thanks to Washington Irving with a plaque.  

My terrible translation of this is "Washington Irving wrote his stories of the Alhambra here in the year 1829". 

We saw the Court of the Myrtles. 

Fuller information about this courtyard can be found here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Court_of_the_Myrtles

 

The plain tower in the background is the Comares tower, and those bushes are the titular myrtles. 

We saw the Court of the Lions: 

Meet some lions  

For further information on the Court of the Lions, please see here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Court_of_the_Lions 

The ceiling of the Sala de los Abencerrajes was possible the most intricate thing we saw all trip. Borrowing the description from Wikipedia - "It is covered by an elaborate muqarnas vault ceiling, featuring a 16-sided lantern cupola in the shape of an eight-pointed star, possibly symbolizing the celestial heaven." 

My less technical take is "imagine beautiful inverted termite mounds". 

There is an even prettier ceiling in the Sala de Dos Hermanas, but I was particular taken by the interplay of the muqarnas ceilings and the stained glass in the Mirador.  

The rest of my photos are outdoor photos.

View of the Partal palace 

Details of this palace - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partal_Palace

   

View over to the Generalife: 

Details of this palace here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalife  

View back from the Generalife: 

We did get to walk over to the Generalife, and the view back helps show how big the whole Alhambra complex is. 

 The Alhambra really is surrounded by Grenada, as can be seen from this photo:  

And that was where we went the next day.

Andalusia 2019 - Part 9 - Antequera

The day after Cadiz, we spent the morning in Antequera, which is a delightfully named town which became even more evocative when the tour guide explained it was called that because it was old when the Romans came. 

Local tourism board - https://antequera.co.uk/ 

Andalusian tourism board - https://www.andalucia.org/en/antequera 

We arrived near the Tourist Office and walked along to one of the squares which had some pretty fountains:  

From there, we walked up the hill to the arch of the giants, created for Philip II of Spain.  

Past the arch lies the Real Colegiata de Santa María la Mayor (https://www.andalucia.org/en/antequera-cultural-tourism-real-colegiata-de-santa-maria-la-mayor)  

I also managed to get probably my best photo technically of the trip, capturing the flag fluttering in the breeze. From the top of the hill you could get a very nice view over the whole town.  

There is a distinctly large number of churches per square foot. According to the tourism board it has the highest churches per person in Spain, and I could believe it. In a panorama shot that didn't quite come out, unfortunately, I managed to get 15 church spires in one shot.

Have a detail from one of them    

I must admit my favourite bit of decoration was this graffiti.  

The next photo is from the top of the hill too. In the distance, you can see a hill that looks like a man's face coming out of the ground. The hill is called the Lover's Rock (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pe%C3%B1a_de_los_Enamorados) and has the exact star-crossed lover's throwing themselves off of it stories you'd imagine.  

We had a very nice lunch in the town square, and then on to our next destination.

Andalusia 2019 - Part 8 - Cadiz

Cadiz was a completely different vibe after Cordoba. 

Partly it was the temperature difference. Cordoba was the other side of 30oC, while Cadiz, being on the coast, was a good 5-10 degrees cooler.  

In Cordoba we had a walk through little twisty streets and looked at flowery courtyards. In Cadiz, we stayed pretty much along the main streets which were much broader. 

On the other hand, they are not broad enough for tourist coaches when you're sent on diversions. Coach driver earned every penny that day.  

The Diario de Cadiz is a local newspaper. I just liked the building.

This is a view of the Plaza del la Cathedral and the "new" cathedral.   

Because my entire family are contrary, and it was on the the way to the Roman Amphitheatre, we looked in the old Cathedral instead. It very much feels like a working church and was absolutely lovely and welcoming. I am therefore linking the following to encourage others to go to the Iglesia de Santa Cruz also (https://turismo.cadiz.es/es/rutas-y-visitas-en-cadiz/iglesia-de-santa-cruz-catedral-vieja , https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iglesia_de_Santa_Cruz_(C%C3%A1diz)).

This is a shot of the back of the old cathedral, taken from the amphitheatre.

 

For those who don't know, my Spanish is terrible. In my defence, I never studied it at school, so it's me using a phrase book and some guessing. The other problem is that the Romance language I did study at school was French, so I start sentences with Spanish intentions but they descend into French with unfortunate speed. 

So, when we got lost on the way to the amphitheatre, I was quite pleased I managed to make myself understood enough to get us to where we wanted to go.  

For more information on the amphitheatre please see here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Theatre_(C%C3%A1diz) https://www.andalucia.org/en/cadiz-visitas-roman-theatre-archaeological-site-in-cadiz 

My fondness for Roman history meant that I wanted to visit, and it's worth it (free entry). 

I have walked where Caesar watched. 

It still makes me quite giddy. 

(Yes, before L says anything, my fondness for Roman archaeology has since caused much misery. I regret nothing.) 

After lunch, we walked round a little more and found the Plaza de España and the monument to the Constitution of 1812. We didn't have quite enough time to explore it thoroughly, so Cadiz is also on the "I want to go back" list.

Three photos of the monument in question     

 A view of the other side of the monument:  

There's lots of allegorical figures. Hopefully this link provides more information - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monument_to_the_Constitution_of_1812 

With that it was back to the hotel in Seville for the last time.

My top 10 films of 2023 - now with explanations

In 2023, I watched 12 new films in the cinema. 

I was on track for more, but then I broke my leg. A determination to watch Napoleon was on of the things that helped get me out of the house. 

The very best film I saw last year was Blue, which I saw with R as part of the Horrorshow exhibition (https://www.somersethouse.org.uk/whats-on/the-horror-show) [fuller review of the show eventually].

If we agree that art is trying to convey experience through a medium, Blue is exceptional. It's undoubtedly one of the greatest works of art I've seen in any medium. 

The chance to see things like that, so utterly better than any of this year's films (most year's films), is why I have a separate category for films not released in that year. 

I was also lucky enough to see Dr. Strangelove and Grand Budapest Hotel at the Electric Cinema (https://www.electricbirmingham.com/) 

For films released this year, I am applying my usual 4 criteria: 

a – did the film do what it set out to do? 

b – did it use its resources to its best ability? A £250,000 film is not going to have as good explosions as a £25,000,000 film, or it shouldn’t, and if it does, there’s something wrong with the £25,000,000 film. Basically, it's a technical merit score. 

c – Intellectual satisfaction – does the film’s plot pull some really stupid move at the last moment? Does the plot rely on characters being more stupid than they are? 

d – Does this work as a whole? Did it work for me? I am aware that this is the most subjective of subjective criteria! 

1 - Polite Society 

This gets both style and ridiculousness points, and extra bonus points for Eunice Huthart (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eunice_Huthart) [every girl my age wanted to be Eunice Huthart when we grew up] and introducing me to Nimra Bucha. It also get a bonus for not being based on a pre-existing media property. 

2 - Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning 

If you'd told me that Mission Impossible 7 would be one of the freshest films I'd see all year I would have laughed at you. It is still a series of action set pieces barely held together with a plot and the lead villain is miscast, and everything I loved about Elsa Faust's fight choreography in Fallout (https://fulltimesportsfan.wordpress.com/2019/04/06/mission-impossible-fallout-is-solid-but-the-fight-scenes-are-exceptional/) this one got wrong. 

On the other hand, Vanessa Kirby, Rebecca Ferguson, Henry Cserny and Shea Whigham's Briggs. I am so easily pleased. 

3 - Across the Spiderverse 

It's not Across the Spiderverse's fault it's not as good as Into the Spiderverse. Unfortunately, some of it did feel like filler when they realised that they'd made one and a half films and they needed to turn it into two. I also really don't like cliffhangers. 

4 - Guardians of the Galaxy 3 

Was it "a bit much"? Yes. Does James Gunn need someone to shout "no" at him? Yes. 

On the other hand, did I go in knowing that? Yes. Did various bits of it, not least of all Teefs, break me in the way James Gunn always breaks me? Yes. 

It was horrific, in a way this sort of film often isn't, but probably should be. It also had the best explanation of why I skew Marvel rather than DC - "everyone deserves a second chance." 

5 - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem 

Could I have done without the romance? Yes. Other than that, it was pleasing Turtle-y nonsense. 

6 - Antman and the Wasp: Quantumania 

To return to the cake metaphor I first used for the first of the Fantastic 4 films, bad superhero films are like bad cake. Yeah, it's bad, but it's still cake. 

And this was only mediocre cake, not actively bad cake. I didn't like what they did with MODOK, and it was too obviously setting up Wave 4 rather than being its own film (see also my problems with Stephen Strange 1 and 2) and there wasn't enough of team minor criminal, but it was bland not bad. 

7 - Indiana Jones 5 

I know what they were trying to do, it just didn't work for me. Sallah steals the film entirely. 

8 - Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Amongst Thieves 

I am the problem with this one. 

My first exposure to D&D was Neverwinter Nights so I totally squeaked when they moved around Neverwinter, and when I play that I almost always play a lady barbarian so Holga, entirely my speed, ditto Doric. 

On the other hand, it was just too ironical for my tastes. I find irony fine seasoning but a poor main course. 

9 - John Wick 4 

The problems with John Wick 4 were accidentally caused by John Wick 3. That was a series of excellent set pieces barely held together by some excellent acting. In this one, the thread holding the action set pieces didn't work, because John spent 3 desperately trying to find the Elder, only for spoiler to happen at the start of this. 

Okay, given spoiler, ragnarok is coming for the High Table. I could get behind that. 

Only then they don't do that either. The plot made no sense!!! 

10 - Three Musketeers: D'Artagnan/Three Musketeers: Milady 

If this ranking was just based on the acting, the set design and the lighting, these films would be in second. 

The directing would have moved them down anyway (directors, we have steady cam, use it). 

And then we hit the screenplay. May the good Lord grant me the self-confidence of someone who adapts one of the most popular books in the world, one which has been consistently popular since its release, and then changes every single bit of the plot. By the end of the second film, it wasn't even suggested by Dumas anymore. 

Also, given they changed everything, one of the revelations in part 2 means someone's actions in part 1 make no sense, and it's just urgh! 

I can happily recommend everything down to 3, would say 4-8 depend on people's likes and dislikes, and several of them have been moved around in this ranking every time I sat down to update it, while 9 and 10 had serious flaws.

Andalusia 2019 - Part 7 - Cordoba

There aren't quite as many photos of Cordoba on my camera because in the process of going OTT on photos of the Alcazar in Seville, I filled up my memory card. This has since been solved by buying a much bigger memory card, but at the time, I had to try to quickly delete photos from the memory card I had to make space. It also means two of the photos came from my phone camera. 

St. Raphael is Cordoba's patron saint and protector (https://sientecordoba.com/en/st-raphaels-day/) so there are lots of statues of St. Raphael. My photo of one of them, which features a monster being speared by St. Raphael on side didn't come out quite right, but you get the general idea.  

Possibly the most famous site in Cordoba is the Mezquita (or Mosque-Cathedral, depending who is doing the translating) - https://mezquita-catedraldecordoba.es/en/ 

Two photos of the outside of the Mezquita The doorway nearest the front of the photo may be the Bab al-Wuzara ("Viziers' Gate"), now known as the Puerta de San Esteban. It is one of the oldest surviving gates of the mosque and dates from 855.  

I'd read about it and I thought I understood. It was a mosque, and then after the reconquista they turned it into a church. So I was expecting a mosque with church insides. 

That is not what the Mezquita is like. 

Imagine they'd listed the features you'd expect from a mosque and the features you'd expect in a church and written them on cards, then shuffled the cards and built according to the first half a deck drawn. 

And I was mostly getting my head around that when I hit the Renaissance bit (https://mezquita-catedraldecordoba.es/en/descubre-el-monumento/el-edificio/capilla-mayor-crucero-y-coro/). Quite frankly, I thought I was having heat stroke. 

Every part is beautiful, and the mixture is unique. I thoroughly recommend seeing it for yourself because the pictures do not convey the effect of the mixture. (The pictures in the Wikipedia page do give an excellent taster though - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosque%E2%80%93Cathedral_of_C%C3%B3rdoba). 

As part of the coach trip, we got a guided walking tour of Cordoba, which was very much worth it, and very recommended because Cordoba is a very pretty city. 

Due to the heat, many of the houses are built around courtyards, a concept introduced by Moors. Every year there is a Courtyard Flower Festival (https://www.turismodecordoba.org/-en-1-1), which we were far too late for in September, but many of the owners kindly leave the shutters open so you can peek in and see the beautiful interiors. (This, according to the Alhambra tour, was also a style picked up from the Moors, plain outside, pretty inside.) As I said, unfortunately, I ran out of memory card space, so please see a few highlights I was able to capture.  

Before the Expulsion of the Jews, Cordoba also had a sizable Jewish population. Only one synagogue survived from before the Expulsion, and it is now open as a museum. 

Photo of the inside as it's no longer an active place of worship:  

For more information - https://www.turismodecordoba.org/synagogue https://www.juntadeandalucia.es/cultura/enclaves/enclave-monumental-sinagoga-de-cordoba and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%B3rdoba_Synagogue 

Maimonides is from Cordoba, and has a statue near the synagogue.  

(A better photo, or at least one without a crowd in front can be seen here - https://www.andalucia.org/en/cordoba-cultural-tourism-monumento-a-maimonides) 

Nearby, there is also a bust of Muhammad ibn Aslam Al-Ghafiqi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_ibn_Aslam_Al-Ghafiqi).  

I had a great time in Cordoba.

My top 10 films of 2023

 As usual, this top 10 is just the new films this year (which does somewhat give away that I will be talking a lot about at least one not-new film in the expanded post with my reasonings).

I have moved everything from 6-11 of these round every time I've written this list so some of them might change again.

The film that didn't make the top 10 is Napoleon, which was every bit as bad as you have been told, but was visually better than most of the other films.

I can only truly recommend the top 2 films (don't get me wrong, I loved Across the Spiderverse, but I do not approve of cliffhangers).  I enjoyed everything down to 6, and and am willing to admit the virtues of everything down to 8.

1 - Polite Society

2 - Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning

3 - Across the Spiderverse

4 - Guardians 3

5 - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

6 - Antman and the Wasp: Quantumania

7 - Indiana Jones 5

8 - Dungeons and Dragons

9 - John Wick 4

10 - Three Musketeers: D'Artagnan/Three Musketeers: Milady