Alhambra

The name comes from the Arabic for "the red one" — al-qal'a al-hamra, the red fortress — most likely a reference to the reddish clay used in its outer walls, visible at dusk when the whole hilltop seems to glow. It began modestly: Muhammad I, founder of the Nasrid dynasty, started fortifying the site in the mid-13th century as the last independent Muslim kingdom in Iberia carved out a foothold at Granada while the rest of al-Andalus fell to Christian reconquest around it. What Muhammad I built was closer to a citadel than a palace. The building that draws people today — the dense sequence of courtyards, halls and gardens known as the Nasrid Palaces — is largely the work of two later rulers, Yusuf I and his son Muhammad V, across the 14th century, by which point Granada had settled into two and a half centuries of relative stability that let its rulers build rather than just defend.

Almost nothing in the palace decoration is there by accident. The Court of the Lions, its twelve stone lions supporting a fountain at the intersection of four channels, is a literal architectural translation of the Quranic description of paradise as a garden fed by four rivers — the geometry is theology, not just design. Every surface that could carry ornament does: muqarnas ceilings built from cascading stucco cells meant to evoke the star-filled dome of the heavens, and walls carrying carved Arabic calligraphy that isn't decorative filler but actual poetry, much of it composed for these specific rooms by the court poet Ibn Zamrak, describing the very fountains and gardens the verses are carved beside.

The Nasrid dynasty's run ended in 1492 when Granada surrendered to Ferdinand and Isabella, and the palace's afterlife is almost as interesting as its construction: Charles V had a Renaissance palace built awkwardly inside the complex in the 16th century, and by the 18th and early 19th centuries the Alhambra had been left to decay so badly that squatters lived in parts of it. Its modern fame owes a lot to Washington Irving, who lodged in the palace in 1829 while researching what became "Tales of the Alhambra," and whose romantic account of the crumbling, half-abandoned site helped trigger the restoration campaigns that saved it.

Getting there

Located in Granada. F.G.L. Airport Granada-Jaén Airport (GRX) is about 17 km away.