Granada
After five nights in Barcelona, we were off to explore southern Spain. But how to get there? It’s very enticing to simply take a flight, and Europe has some of the cheapest in the world—you can pay as little as $27 to fly from Barcelona to Granada. But one of my goals for this trip was to travel more slowly and sustainably, and that means avoiding air travel whenever possible. Luckily, Spain, like so many European countries, has a number of high-speed train routes, including one from Barcelona to Granada. So off we went for the fastest land journey of our lives!
There’s nothing particularly remarkable about Spain’s high-speed AVE trains. We barely noticed how fast we were going, except that each carriage has a display showing our speed (which topped out at 300 kph). And there’s a strange pressure in your ears when you go rocketing through tunnels at that speed. I loved passing through so many landscapes, from the greener and more fertile areas around Barcelona, to the drier, more iconic Spanish vistas in the south. As we approached Granada, the train slowed to ascend the rocky Sierra Nevada mountains, and a light rain was falling that had followed us from Barcelona.
It’s almost impossible not to fall in love with the charm of Granada. It’s a small city with a huge student population (over 80,000) and probably even a larger tourist population. But it still feels like a small town, and it’s easy to find your way off the crowded main streets into quiet and twisting back alleys and small squares, especially in the old Albaicín neighborhood, which you could easily mistake for one of Spain’s little hill villages. Gift shops catering to tourists are abundant, but so are small tapas bars frequented mostly by locals. Orange trees heavy with fruit line the streets. Fountain-studded courtyards are everywhere. Almost every view is postcard-worthy, with its whitewashed walls and red tile roofs, the massive Alhambra fortress towering over the city, the spires & domes of cathedrals and convents punctuating the skyline, and the white-capped Sierra Nevada forming a backdrop. (Those mountains are why Amy decided to study here years ago. The city is at about 2,400 feet above sea level, and she says it only took 30 minutes by train to reach some cheap ski slopes, where she would often go snowboarding!)
Granada (which means pomegranate in Spanish and is the symbol of the city) has a well-worn patina, a feeling of elegant tawdriness. The city has been so important for so long that it no longer has anything to prove to anybody. Rick Steves summed up Granada well: in this video “Once the grandest city in Spain, its power ebbed and glory faded. Today, it has a Deep South feel—a relaxed vibe that seems typical of once powerful places now past their prime.”
To understand southern Spain, you have to understand the huge role that the Moors played in its history. Borrowing liberally from Wikipedia here:
In the year 711, troops from northern Africa led an invasion and conquest of an area near Gibraltar. Soon, most of modern-day Spain, plus Portugal, Sicily, Malta, and even parts of southern France were absorbed into the expanding Umayyad Empire. Under Muslim rule, the Iberian Peninsula came to be known in as al-Andalus. The Berbers and Arabs that occupied this area are today known as the Moors, a term derived from a Roman word for the Berber tribes of northwest Africa.
Al-Andalus became a beacon of learning and scientific achievement and a conduit for the exchange of culture & knowledge between the Islamic and Christian worlds. The city of Córdoba, the largest in Europe, became one of the leading cultural and economic centers in Europe and the Islamic world. Al-Andalus was also tolerant: Christians and Jews there were allowed to practice their religions and offered the same level of protections as Muslims (provided they paid a special tax).
But the Christian kingdoms in the north pushed back again their Muslim neighbors, a conflict known as the Reconquista, and Muslim power began to decline in 1085. Córdoba fell in 1236, leaving the emirate of Granada as the last Muslim state on the Iberian Peninsula until it too fell in 1492.
But indelible impressions were left by the Moors which are still obvious today throughout Spain and especially in modern day Andalusia, Spain’s southernmost region. One such example is the Alhambra in Granada, probably Spain’s most iconic monument, as well as one of the most famous and best-preserved examples of historical Islamic architecture anywhere.
Built on a steep hill overlooking the city, the Alhambra gets its unique name from its reddish walls (literally, “the red one”). The complex was a self-contained city separate from the rest of Granada, with a mosque, public baths, roads, houses, workshops, a tannery, at least six palaces, and a castle-like fortress called the Alcazaba. Today, the most popular of these are the Nasrid Palaces, in which every wall is adorned with incredibly detailed Islamic art and script, which reminded me very much of the Taj Mahal. But perhaps the most impressive aspect of the Alhambra (at least to Amy!) was its sophisticated waster system fed by an aqueduct from the Darro River 6 km away. This supplied countless fountains, pools, orchards and gardens through a gravity-fed labyrinth of burbling channels and hidden pipes, giving the place a sense of serene lushness in an otherwise parched environment—a hallmark of Muslim architecture.
Construction begun in 1238 on the site of earlier fortresses, and it continued to be modified over several centuries. After the conclusion of the Christian Reconquista in 1492, it became the Royal Court of Ferdinand and Isabella, where Christopher Columbus received royal endorsement for his expedition to the New World, and it was significantly modified by Charles V. It was then abandoned and allowed to fall into disrepair for centuries. Since the 19th century, it has been the subject of numerous restorations and is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, visited by thousands of awe-struck visitors every day.
But the Alhambra is not the only thing you need to experience in Granada. There’s also the tapas bars, of course. We tried and mostly failed to find one of these that was actually open in the afternoon (more on the Spanish siesta later), but we did finally track down one recommended by our AirBnB host, squirreled away in the top of the ridiculously hilly and charming Albaicín neighborhood. Amy was a bit horrified/intrigued when they delivered a plate of freshly fried whole sardines before we had even ordered!
Our last night there, we made the obligatory trek up to the top of town (no small feat, especially with Griffin on my shoulders) for a flamenco show, supposedly in one of the old gypsy caves. When Amy was a student here, she was warned about these caves, and still has dreams of wandering up there and being abducted by a band of these gypsies (I think some handsome male ones). But I don’t think she had much to worry about. The tiny arched cave we entered was clearly man-made, (with a sound system and LED lighting nestled amongst the pans, pictures and trinkets on the walls), and I suspect that the four or five dancers, accompanied by a singer and guitarist, were just some enterprising Spaniards capitalizing on gullible tourists like ourselves. But their frenetic dance moves and colorful costumes were nonetheless impressive. Griffin captured some images and videos on our phones, though this Rick Steves video might do it more justice!
Our time in Granada was up too soon, and the next morning we packed up, got a rental car, and headed out to our next stop, Ronda!