The Alhambra

In Granada there is the most visited monument in Spain – the magnificent Alhambra – a world heritage site, standing like a jewel on a hill above the city.

The Alhambra came into being as a massive castle, built by the founder of the Nazrid dynasty in the 13th century. Possibly the Alcazaba is the area with the earliest recorded history. Strictly speaking it is a small fortified town within the Alhambra. It's watchtower provides the visitor with amazing views of Granada city and the surrounding countryside, including the Sierra Nevada mountains. Later kings built additional palace buildings – particularly stunning is the Nazrid Palace with exquisite carvings, stucco plaster, courts, fountains and arched windows.

Also they created the summer gardens of the Generalife, where cypresses, myrtle, roses, jasmines, oleanders and many other plants bloom and thrive amid the constant sound of running water from fountains and acequias. It was an American diplomat, Washington Irving who invented this ultra-romantic image in his ‘Tales from the Alhambra' published in 1832.

Today, you can still hear the nightingales singing in the summer dusk while perhaps having a drink in the delightful small parador in the heart of the Alhambra grounds.

This magical fortress palace – the name in Arabic means ‘The Red One' – quite probably stands as shorthand for all that was most graceful and intricate, most extravagant and most accomplished in the long-lost Moorish civilisation in Spain. No wonder that the last ruling Arabic king – Boabdil – when fleeing from the conquest of Granada, looked back at the Alhambra from the Sierra Nevada mountains – and wept.

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