A year ago today, I was in Spain. Granada, to be specific. At the Alhambra, to be even more specific. Taking pictures. A lot of them. 798 of them to be exact. Scary, I know. 

But some places are just so damn photogenic you can’t help yourself. The Alhambra is one of those places. From the sweeping views of the city beyond to the intricate Islamic details in the Nasrid Palace. It’s probably one of the most beautiful places I’d ever seen. 

In fact, visiting the Alhambra completed my personal trifecta, the top three places my 16 year old AP Art History student self drooled over once upon a time, in that heavy heavy coffee table encyclopedia they dared call a textbook. Number one on my bucket list was Saint Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, which I visited on a side trip from Croatia back in 2016. It was somehow even more breathtaking to see in real life than I could have ever imagined. Number two on my bucket list was (yes you guessed it, I’m pretty basic) the grandiose Palace of Versailles, because King Louis XIV’s extravagant style is the level of extra I aspire to (jk). I visited on a weekend while studying abroad in Paris back in 2014, and it was truly everything I wanted and more. 

And then finally, the third page of my art history book that I was dying to see IRL, the Alhambra. And it was, of course, even better than I had hoped. So much bigger than any photo could illustrate. Big enough to accommodate tour bus-loads of visitors without feeling overcrowded. Big enough to spend an entire day wandering through the gardens, the ruins, the palaces. Picture perfect in every direction. So I clearly had a field day.

And the fruits of that camera roll was basically hundreds of photos of a handful of places from slightly different angles. And a lot of arches and doorways and windows. I mean. A lot. 

Which is why I decided to dedicate an entire post to some of my favorite selects.