One of the most glorious sights in all of Europe is the ancient Moorish palace of the Alhambra perched on a hill above the city of Granada, with the snow covered peaks of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in the background.
Granada is a city that treasures its views of the Alhambra and the Sierra Nevada. The best viewpoints are from small plazas on the hillside above Granada where locals gather to play guitars and sing flamenco songs and watch the sunsets turn the snowy peaks pink and red. The best of the viewpoints is called the "Mirador de San Nicolas" and people have been going there for centuries to see the view. The Spanish poet Frederico Garcia Lorca wrote a poem about how he would climb to the Miradors high above the oldest district of Granada, saying "The streets are narrow, dramatic, with stairways infrequent and dilapidated, undulating tentacles that twist and turn capriciously and exhaustingly in order to reach little viewpoints from which the vast snowy spines of the mountains are seen.
In summer, Lorca said The mountain slopes are coloured violet and bright blue, while the summits are rosy-white. There are still spirited patches of snow that resist the sun’s fire, while in winter the snows of the sierra are visible beneath the gauzy mists…
Sadly, the snows won't be visible for much longer. All across Europe ski areas are closing because they no longer receive enough winter snowfall. Global warming is turning winter snow to rain. The Spanish words "Sierra Nevada" mean snowy mountains, but continued global warming means less and less snow will actually fall even on the highest peaks. No doubt some winter storms will still paint the mountains white, but the glorious sight of the Alhambra framed by snowy mountains will become a rare vision indeed.
Yes...this means the rain in Spain will no longer fall mainly in the plain----.
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