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Granada - Sights & Things To Do

The Alhambra complex takes its name from the blush-coloured walls that enclose its builidings and towers. It was originally called qa’lat al-Hamra or the ‘Red Castle’ and started life in the 11th century. However the most eye catching elements – such as the Palacio de los Leones and the Palacio de Comares – date from the mid to late-14th century when Nasrid architecture was at its peak. The former was the private living quarters of the Sultan and his family, while the latter was where he would receive emissaries and important guests. The Alhambra’s centrepiece, the Palacio de Mexuar, is also from this period. It’s a beautiful, light and fragile collection of stunningly decorated buildings and courtyards, built in brick, wood and adobe. Here the Sultan conducted his business and saw to judicial matters.

Once the Moors left in the late-15th century, Christian monarchs added to the complex in a markedly different style, which many visitors regard as disrupting the aesthetic unity of the Alhambra. Having said that the Christian Palacio de Carlos V and the Convento de San Francisco are undeniably beautiful and add to the sense of the Alhambra’s architecture chronicling Granada’s turbulent history.

After Carlos V left in the mid 16th century, the whole sight gradually fell into ruin and went on to suffer terrible abuse at the hands of Napoleon’s troops who were stationed here in 1812. Twenty years later Washington Irving’s bestselling book, Tales of the Alhambra, put Granada firmly on the tourist map and the Spanish government finally allotted funds to the site’s restoration.

Some years after reconquering the city, Isabel chose Granada – the scene of her and Ferdinand’s greatest victory – as their final resting-place. In 1504, she commissioned Enrique de Egas to build the Capilla Real (Royal Chapel) as their Capilla Realmausoleum. Over the centuries this late-Gothic chapel has become Granada’s finest Christian building.

Interred in the crypt, Ferdinand and Isabel’s coffins are surprisingly plain in themselves, but they sit below a Renaissance sepulchre that is decorated with immense care and attention to detail. It is covered in a myriad of symbols representing Isabel and Ferdinand’s reign. These include corpulent lions denoting royal status, gryphons representing paganism and a pelican ripping open its own chest as a symbol of Christian sacrifice.

Although the monarchs’ tomb is the centrepiece of the Capilla Ral, its interior boasts many other stunning features. The altarpiece depicts the life of Christ and the tortures of John the Baptist and John the Evangelist in lingering detail. The Sacrista houses a priceless collection of crown jewels, including Isabel’s crown and sceptre and Ferdinand’s sword, which were traditionally paraded through Granada in the annual celebration of the conquest.

The most emphatic and monumental symbol of the Christian reconquista of Muslim Granada, built on the site of the city’s mosque, was the Santa Iglesia Catedral Metropolitana de Granada, which is also attached to the Capilla Real. The beautiful main façade is designed to resemble a Roman triumphal arch – further reinforcing the Christian victory over Islam. The gold-and-white interior is one of the most sensational and original examples of Spanish Renaissance architecture. The chief attraction is the Capilla Mayor, a rotunda circled by an ambulatory (or walkway) and surmounted by a 45 metre dome. The graceful rotunda has two architectural layers. The upper one is adorned by art depicting the life of the Madonna, along with stunning stained glass that dates from the 1500s. At the entrance to the rotunda is a pair of panels, one depicting Ferdinand and Isabella in prayer, the other by depicting Adam and Eve.

After the Alhambra, the thing that probably draws most visitors to Granada is flamenco. The city’s gypsy population arrived from India in the mid-15th century. They settled north-east of the Albaicín, in cave quarters on Sacromonte hill, which were initially segregated from the rest of the city due to the granadinos’ suspicion of them. In spite of this they flourished and although many of the caves were abandoned after heavy floods in the 1960s, a large proportion of the Sacromonte population continues to live in converted caves, some of which are surprisingly luxurious.

The problem with seeing flamenco in Granada is that it is, by nature, a spontaneous phenomenon. The only scheduled performances tend of be in the flamenco caves in the Sacromonte area, which have a reputation for being expensive and very touristy. And although the performers are usually fine, they tend to give a somewhat perfunctory performance for uninitiated visitors. Most hotels offer packages to such establishments, with a drink and a walking tour included in the price. Alternatively, if you hang out in an Albaicín or Sacromonte bar, you may eavesdrop on a more authentic gitano knees-up, but you’ll have to be lucky.

The only other way to see scheduled top class flamenco is to time your visit to coincide with a performance by touring professional artists at venues like the Centro Internacional de Estudios Gitanos. And if you want to find out more about gypsy culture, visit the Centro de Interpretación del Sacromonte. This fascinating open-air centre, incorporating seven reconstructed cave dwellings, aims to explain the environmental and socio-cultural genesis of Sacromonte, and to preserve its threatened local traditions.

The most widely translated Spanish author of all time, the poet/dramatist Federico García Lorca – author of Blood Wedding, The House of Bernarda Alba and A Poet in New York – moved to Granada in 1909 as a schoolboy. He immediately became fascinated with its life, including the Alhambra and the gypsies, whom he later described compassionately in his Gypsy Ballads.

The Lorca family’s summer residence from 1926 to 1936, La Huerta de San Vicente, is now a museum surrounded by a manicured park and run by the poet's niece, Laura García Lorca. Here Lorca sat amid orchards and gazed out at the views of the Sierra Neveada that filled him with inspiration: “It is there, in my Huerta de San Vicente, that I write my most tranquil theatre.”

The house itself is decorated with green trim and grillwork. The downstairs rooms hold some original furniture – including the poet's beloved piano – as well as portraits and photos of the Lorca family, plus material pertaining to a children’s puppet show that Lorca staged at the house in 1923. Upstairs is a host of memorabilia, including a hand-painted poster for ‘La Barraca’, Lorca’s travelling theatre troupe, which took popular farces and tragedies to rural Spanish communites in 1933. You’ll also find the poet's bedroom and his oak desk stained with ink. And you can look out at the Alhambra from one of its balconies.