Country Article / Postcards

Granada: Tales from the Alhambra

Date: 09/04/2005

Dear International Living Reader,

I’ve nicked the "Tales from the Alhambra" title from Washington Irving. The American author (who also penned Rip van Winkle) spent three months in Granada in 1829. He lodged in the Alhambra palace, an architectural marvel that stands as a symbol of Moorish Spain’s glory days.

Meaning the "Red Fort," the Alhambra’s name comes from the Arabic Al Qal'a al-Hamra. Along with the Generalife Gardens, it consists of an Alcazaba (fortress), an Alcazar (palace), and a small Medina (city). Allow at least a half-day to experience its grandeur, tragedy, and sheer romance.

But first, a quick explanation of what "Moorish Spain" signifies. In 711 AD, the soldiers of Islam--the Moors--crossed the straits from North Africa. Sweeping across the Iberian peninsula, their Empire eventually stretched from Andalusia to Salamanca in Spain’s north, Valencia in the east, and the Algarve in western Portugal. Moorish rule came to its final end with the fall of Granada in 1492.

The Alhambra serves as a peculiar reminder that the Western world once associated Islam--certainly European Islam--with luxury, hedonism, and decadent sultanas indulging in sexual hanky-panky with their lovers in moonlit gardens. The Nasrid palace is the undoubted highlight. In particular don’t miss Patio de los Leones (Lions’ Court) with its forest of slender marble pillars. The central fountain, supported by 12 lions, is a rarity; depicting animal or human life forms is forbidden in Islamic art.

Legends come thick and fast in the Lions’ Court. Irving tells of a faint tinkling, like the distant clank of chains: "These sounds were made by the spirits of the murdered Abencerrages, who nightly haunt the scene of their suffering and invoke the vengeance of Heaven on their destroyer." Twelve Abencerrages (the sultan’s political rivals) apparently had their heads chopped off and piled into a font.

Irving fantasized that the Alhambra lay under magical enchantments. Its Moorish residents awoke each night to walk its courtyards, often searching for hidden treasures. All complete balderdash, of course, but it’s a great book for romantics to take along. You may even conjure up the youthful Moorish princess Zorahayda, who perished in a tower. Irving writes she was "often seen by moonlight seated beside the fountain in the hall, or moaning about the battlements...the notes of her silver lute heard at midnight by wayfarers passing along the glen."

In Irving’s day the Alhambra was in a derelict state--a few years earlier Napoleon’s soldiers had used it as a barracks. Needless to say you can’t possibly take up lodgings here nowadays...and, despite what 19th-century travelers did, you can’t take a cooling dip in the pool of the Court of Myrtles either!

As only a certain number of visitors are allowed into the Alhambra each day, you should reserve your tickets in advance. I did it through www.alhambratickets.com. You pay €10.88 online versus €10 at the gate, but you avoid the lengthy queues.

Steenie Harvey
For International Living