Andalucian Tour Part 2

The scenic route from Ronda to Granada takes one across the top of the mountains of the Sierra de las Nieves and the Sierra Tejeda, Almijara and Alhama on good but narrow and tortuous roads with fine panoramic views, through the pine clad foothills and along fertile valleys with citrus and olive groves and crops of all kinds including tomatoes, asparagus and artichokes.

We had breakfast in a busy smoke filled café in the main square of El Burgo. We had tostada drizzled with wonderful extra virgen olive oil and sprinkled with a little salt – just like the locals have. It was about 1030 on a Sunday morning and the men in the café/bar, there were no women, were on their second or third wine, beer or spirit, whichever took their fancy! We made do with a cup of coffee as we were driving! Lunch in the hills was mouth watering spit-roasted pork in an isolated taverna.

The views from the ‘boca’s’ or ‘puertos’ (passes) through the Sierras were stunning and as we descended down what seemed a sheer face from 1600 metres to the plain of Granada.

A city of contrasts, a symbiosis of cultures, built around the deep valley of the River Darro, Granada has been coveted by many different civilizations for its strategic position. Iberians, Romans and Visigoths preceded the Muslims who were to make the city the cultural centre of the western world for centuries. They bequeathed the city most of its exceptional heritage and designed its urban layout, a charming tangle of narrow lanes, beautiful gardens and fountains. Then came the Christians and the Catholic Kings.

The real benefit of our ‘Pensione’ in Granada was not its cheap price, its clean and comfortable en suite room but its location in the Albaycin and only a hundred metres from the west gate to the Alhambra complex.

The people of Granada call themselves Grenadines, which are Pomegranates in Spanish.

The Cathedral is without doubt the most massive religious edifice we have seen on this trip so far. Corinthian columns support a magnificent circular Capilla Major, housing the altar and choir.

We had a Tapas supper in a friendly bar. Only after we had ordered four varieties of Tapa did the waiter tell us we had a free Tapa with every drink. A very sociable evening ended later than we had intended with full stomachs!
We rose early in the morning to look at the view from the Generalife (sounds to us like an Insurance Company but is pronounced (G as in Gun) Gaynayrahleefay), the Sultan’s summer palace and farm, with the early morning sun on the Alhambra. As did the Sultans in the 13th and 14th centuries from their summer palace, Generalife, we watched the soft rays of the early morning sun wash the stark stone walls of the Alhambra with a warm glow and wake the mist kissed valley of the Albaycin way below. All the time the snow-capped peaks of the Sierra Nevada to the South presided, grandly.

There are three Palaces within the walls of the Alhambra the earliest of which is the Palacio del Portico of which little remains. The Comares Palace and the Palace of the Lions, like any Moorish residential building of the period, has the living and state accommodation built behind an arched gallery surrounding a central patio or courtyard. The scale, adornment and embellishment are, of course, grander in Palaces than in normal houses as would befit a Sultan.

It would be too protracted to mention every striking feature of each Palace, and there are a multitude and they are very beautiful, suffice it to limit myself to one or two of the most important. Should you wish to see more please read a book, look at the website or preferably visit the place.

The Court of Myrtles, the rectangular central patio in the Comares palace, gets its name from the myrtle bushes that border the still pool, which in turn reflects the grandeur of the building.




















The patio of the Palace of Lions is cruciform with a grand fountain at its centre comprising a large bowl supported on twelve Lions. This would have been richly painted with a predominance of gold to contrast with the white marble.















The façade of the Comares Palace is one of the architectural masterpieces of the Alhambra and of Islamic art with its original, now worn, covering in strong colours of different tones. It reaches a peak of perfection in the impressive eaves, masterpieces of Islamic carpentry.









The walls of the Sultan’s living rooms and rooms of state are decorated internally with a dado of Azulejos or Cuerda seca (Tiling, mosaic or painted) and sebka (fretwork plaster panels) above. Any colour in the plasterwork has faded but would have been rich and magnificent. A fine example of this wall finish can be seen in the Comares Hall or Throne room, the largest and perhaps the grandest room in the Alhambra. In this hall the wooden ceiling is extraordinary in that it is made up if different sized wooden boards nailed together and then to the ribs of the vault. Varying small decorative wooden pieces are then pinned on to give a textured effect. The ceiling, like any wooden ceiling plain or textured, would then have been gloriously painted.


One of the most striking features in the Alhambra is the ceiling in the Sala de los Abencerrajes entered off the patio of the Palace of the Lions It is a cupola of mocarabes (stalactite-like decoration made by joining together tiny prisms of plaster or wood to give a honeycomb effect) forming an eight-pointed star.

Perhaps the most beautiful and exquisite of all rooms in the entire Alhambra, containing superb examples of all the lavish features outlined above is the Mirador de Lindaraja.










The Medina, the domicile and workshops for the Sultan’s staff, within the Alhambra walls is largely an archaeological site or has been overbuilt by a renaissance palace, church and convent.
The outer walls of the Alcazar or fortified Citadel that housed the Sultan’s elite army are intact but only foundation stonework walls remain of the quarters and workshops for the troops. One of the most potent symbols of the Alhambra and of Granada itself is the Watch Tower at the western end of the Alcazar. This massive Tower appears on Granada’s coat of arms and the views from it over the city and the hills to the west are magnificent.
In the evening we climbed up through the narrow streets of the Albaycin, the original Moorish town, to the Plaza San Nicolas where we watched the colour of the walls of the Alhambra and of the snow capped peaks of the Sierra Nevada change to pink as the sun set.

If there is one striking place to visit in Andalucia or, indeed, the entire Iberian peninsular it has to be the wondrous Alhambra.

Miggy broadcasts on BBC Radio Solent next on the 19th December at between 0630 and 0645.