Columbus Day

Tuesday, October 14

In honor of Columbus Day here is picture of the statue/fountain of Queen Isabella and Christopher Columbus in Granada. I'm not much on history, but I did a bunch of research on these two. OK, it was only a couple of pages on Wikipedia, but it was very educational since I've never given much thought to Columbus day. It's a national holiday here called Día de la Hispanidad and commemorates the start of relations between Europe and the Americas. October 12th is the day that Columbus landed in the Americas, somewhere in the Bahamas. Queen Isabel was the one who commisioned Columbus (Cristobal Colón) and this statue depicts that moment in history. I'll confess I never new Columbus was Italian. In 1492 Granada was the last unconqureed Muslim kingdom within Spain, and Isabella and her husband Ferdinand were the rulers at that time. Later they were givin the title Reyes Catolicós (Catholic Kings) by Pope Alexander VI. Eventually they were buried in the cathedral here in Granada. That's probably as much history as you'll ever have to read on this blog. We enjoyed having a three day weekend.