How do you describe the Mirador? It's really just a square high above the rest of Granada that provides the perfect place to take pictures of the city and the Alhambra. We saw hundreds of tourists doing just that, snapping beautiful views like the one below and then moving on.
But the view from the Mirador is not a still life, even if it is not a place of constant, frantic activity, either.
When we were in the Alhambra, the art museum there had an exhibit by a film artist. He filmed things where only a few things in the picture moved, and they moved in slow motion. There was one film of a tree with the sun rising behind it, except the film was slowed down so you could see every leaf on the tree slowly blowing in the wind as the sun rose much more slowly than it normally would – almost as if the camera had been savoring the moment, not wanting it to end.
When I think of what it's like to sit on the wall of the Mirador and watch the transition from day to night, it makes me think of that slow motion sunrise. As the sun sinks, the color of the mountains and city change so gradually that I found myself taking the same three pictures every fifteen minutes. It was like watching God playing with the colors of the landscape in Photoshop – first dragging the color bar from middle to red and then slowly moving it over to blue.
The Sierra Nevadas were not to be outdone. Beth tells me that the first time she was in Granada, there was one sunset so beautiful that everyone at the Mirador gave the mountains a round of applause. This one was apparently not worthy of a standing ovation, but it was still a magnificent performance.
Those are both tough acts to follow.
