June 17: Granada and La Alhambra

Dear Friends and Relatives,

After breakfast we spent the morning and part of the afternoon exploring the Alhambra, the UNESCO Heritage site.  It is much more than a palace; it is an entire walled city within the city of Granada.  There are royal apartments, forts, gardens, pavilions, barracks, and sumptuous gardens which offered protection from the summer heat.  Nicolas, a very fine guide and thinker, led us through the Nasrid Palace, the most renowned Islamic building in Europe, dating from the 14th c. and filled with Arabic inscriptions and geometric patterns, perfectly proportioned chambers, and peaceful courtyards.  

There are three distinct groups of buildings on the Alhambra hill: the Palacios Nazares, also called the Royal Palace or the Nasrid Palace; the palace gardens of the Generalife; and the Alcazaba.  One of the Moorish rulers was Al-Ahmar, and it was he who had seen to it that the palace was supplied with running water, by diverting the river Darro.  Water is an integral part of the Alhambra, and its many quiet and splashing fountains and water moments within the confines of exquisite gardens make the Alhambra the amazing place it is.  

Following their conquest of the city in 1492, Ferdinand and Isabel lived for a while in the Alhambra.  A particularly poignant moment of ceding the city into Christian hands came when the last Moorish king, Boabdil, leaving Granada for exile in the Alpujarras, turned and wept at the site, earning from his mother the following rebuke: "Do not weep like a woman for what you could not defend like a man!"  Ferdinand and Isabel restored some rooms and converted the mosque, but left the palace structure unaltered.  It was the emperor Charles V who built his Renaissance palace onto it.  Later rulers during the 18th c. were to use the Palacios Nazaries as a prison, and it was occupied by Napoleon in 1812, who looted and damaged whole sections of the palace.  

However, two decades later, the rediscovery of the Alhambra began with the impetus of the American writer Washington Irving, who set up his study in the empty palace and began to write his romantic "Tales of the Alhambra."  Shortly after its publication, Spaniards made the Alhambra a national monument and set aside funds for its restoration.  This continues to the present day and is now a highly sophisticated project, scientifically removing the evidence of later ages in order to expose and restore Moorish creations.  

Within the Alhambra stood a complete city of mansions, houses, baths, schools, mosques, barracks and gardens.  To me, it is the latter that make the place so very special.  Of course the Moorish decorative elements are stunning in places like the throne room and the audience chambers, but it is the gardens of the Generalife which hold my heart.  Paradise is described in the Koran as a shady, leafy garden refreshed by running water, where the fortunate ones will take their rest.  The word "Generalife" means "Garden of the Architect," and the grounds consist of a luxuriously imaginative series of patios, enclosed gardens, and walkways.  And then there is, of course, the Patio de los Leones, or the Court of the Lions, the archetypal image of the Alhambra, and this interior garden, planted with shrubs and aromatic herbs, opens onto three of the palace's finest rooms, each of which looks onto the fountain.  Tall cypresses finish out the elegant and softening aspect of the gardens of the Alhambra, and the views of the Albaicin quarter of Granada below and, at points along the way, across the rest of the city and the Sierra Nevada mountains beyond were thrilling, all once again framed against a cerulean sky.  Astounding!  

Returning to our hotel after a 3-hour tour, we quickly met again for a farewell tapas lunch.  As Jill and I were walking towards the restaurant, we were caught by a long red pedestrian light, and by the time we looked up, our group was nowhere to be seen.  After fruitlessly wandering for a while, we went back to the hotel, found out where to go, and met guide Luisa down the Avenida de los Reyes Católicos.  There we joined the rest our crew for carpaccio, a small salad, a croquette filled with potatoes and cheese;  chicken, lamb, and beef on skewers, and three little desserts of strawberries and tiny chocolate squares.  Everyone exchanged email addresses, and we said goodbye to each other.  Tomorrow, our first wave of travelers leaves at 5:00 a.m. for the Granada Airport, where I have a 7:00 a.m. flight to Madrid.  From there, I have an 8:55 a.m. Iberia flight to Dublin, Ireland, where I meet Paula, who is coming in from Paris.  Meanwhile, I need to pack once more and then say goodbye to "Granada, tu tierra está llena de lindas mujeres, de sangre, de sol"--in the words of the famous Granada song!  By the way, to gain a sense of the beauty of the Alhambra gardens, go to You Tube and listen to Alicia de Larrocha, famous Spanish pianist, play "Noches en los jardínes de España" or "Nights in the Gardens of Spain," which is a musical evocation of the gardens of the Alhambra, composed by the great Manuel de Falla.  As ever, Sylvia

Sylvia M. Venable, PhD

Instructor, German

St. John's Episcopal School

Dallas, Texas