4 years ago, a trip to a city in Spain… That trip changed my life completely.. Luckily in a good way… Now again, I was here… This time, I was not expecting anything from here… I just wanted to create a space in my mind. Just to be far away from everything and be close to the place that changed my life… Granada…
This was the last trip of 2022 for me, after being in 8 countries, and 15 cities… I was already tired of airports, flights, transfers… However, now I was excited and had fresh feelings…
Let me share my spiritual journey with this mystical city with a few pictures and their stories:
A night walk in the dark streets of Granada
On my first evening, it was very cold, and there was nobody on the streets. I was walking around the cathedral and thinking about its history… My mind was bouncing between the past and now while looking at the details in that freezing cold… This was disturbed for a moment. I recognized that I was not alone. There was a person in the same street and he was playing guitar quietly with sincere and pure tones… It looked like he had a serenity that a person can only achieve when he is with only himself…
Quick city tour in rush, missing the bus and memories…
The next morning, I was walking in the center of Granada and remembering the memories, feelings, and mindset that I had 4 years ago… Now, I was late for my ticket pass to Alhambra and wanted to take the bus back. However, again… There was another person who was playing violin on the street but he was not alone this time. The violinist was playing like he was already disconnected from the world and this was silently watched by the people around with the sounds of raindrops.
On the other hand, the bus was coming, and I really had to take this one… There were logical reasons, raining, being late, and Alhambra… I didn’t take that bus and I didn’t look when the next one was coming, but I wish I had… 😄
I found a place on the other side of the street. Starbucks… Some people with giant umbrellas were taking a coffee break because of the rain. I passed between them and went up to the second floor to take a picture of that show, a passion of the violinist and the people under the rain…
I faced with a view far beyond what I had expected…
A wooden table in the shade of a tree with a vivid yellow color which looks like ignoring the winter…
And a violinist in one of the details among the leaves…
En Camino.. Alma de Luna…
It was my last day in Granada. Another cold day with a sunny morning… I was packing my suitcase and leaving the historic and a bit mystical house from Albayzin..
On my last night, I saw a house and I stayed and looked at its door. It was a moment when the moonlight only illuminated that door… I could read some words under the moonlight. It was written ‘La media luna’… It was kind of a magical moment and resetting the mind…
I wanted to see what it was like in the daytime and I tried to go, but all the narrow streets looked alike and I was walking my suitcase through the stony streets. At some point, I decided to stop and rest to get away from the noise of the suitcase wheels on the stones.
The surprise: a farewell gift from Granada…
On that street, I was hearing Spanish melodies that were probably coming from a radio of one of the old houses… The song was also old, like from 50s… It was “Ay, pena, penita, pena!”
I didn’t move and I stayed there, looking at the windows of the houses to see which house the song was coming from. I wondered who was listening to such music on a beautiful clear sunny holiday morning, who knows what someone had been through… 🙂
However, a few seconds later, I was shocked.
It wasn’t coming from inside any house. It was in the street and this was alive. All that shouting, not from the past, but from the present moment. Those melodies were coming from a woman sitting on the corner of the street, just a little further away. I wanted to get closer, I picked up my suitcase without riding it and I was walking slowly…
Slowly, because my heartbeat was racing and I was a bit nervous… I couldn’t believe but it was real.. This was the same door, La Media Luna… She was sitting in front of it and singing this song…
The perfume of nature
I believe in destiny.. It gathers everything together… Location, time, people, feelings, thoughts, mood…
It was like a palace gate, with a big palm tree, the perfume of lilies, roses, and jasmines, and at the same time, pomegranates. A stone house that resembled a palace…
All these moments were special in Granada.. But this last surprise… The beauty of the view was freezing the blood, but the woman’s voice and the guitar made that frozen blood flow again…
Final words…
I couldn’t leave there easily… The whole journey made me feel I meet myself fully and I was refreshed.. Also, I was remembering how my last 4 years changed between these two trips to Granada and remembering the difficulties, feelings, and mindset that I had 4 years ago…
I was grateful.
It was more than an expected trip, but I already had a feeling that it was going to be more than my expectation… 🙂
