Recently we enjoyed a four day trip to see the Alhambra at Granada, it was my third attempt, the first was about 40 years ago when I was living in Madrid and I drove down to find that it was closed for repairs and then about 9 years ago when I arrived there at about midday when on the way back from Torreviega only to find that the ticket office closed each day at 11 am!

This time I booked tickets on line several days before and we stayed in an hotel for 3 nights. We enjoyed it immensely and took lots of photographs and also bought a book by Washington Irvine called ‘Tales of the Alhambra'.  Washington was an American diplomat who aged 46 in 1829 rode with a friend from Seville to Granada a distance of 162 miles and then stayed in the Alhambra for several months.

His book is made up of tales told to him by the locals and is filled with wonderful stories, many of enchanted beautiful Princesses, often locked up in a lofty tower by their fathers to stop them from  communicating with unsuitable young men! According to one of his stories it is vitally important if you see one not to speak to her, if you do she will just vanish! There are other stories of treasure buried by the Moors when they left, planning to come back and reclaim it and also an entire enchanted army who march with their horses past the Alhambra without making a sound!

The journey from where I live in the Algarve takes almost 5 hours, the Alhambra is situated between the city of Granada and the snow covered Sierra Nevada. There was a settlement here from around the 5th century BC, the town was known as  Ileberis during the period of the Roman occupation, it was enlarged under the Visigoths and then taken over by the Arabs in 711.  Various Arab dynasties ruled Granada until the last known as the Nasrites who under Mohammed 1 established a kingdom there in 1241. The Nazrite Moors held Granada for the next 250 years until defeated by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1491.

The Alhambra is difficult to photograph from the outside as the hillside is covered with trees. Once inside you begin to appreciate the size of the Alhambra. Firstly it consists of a fortress known as the Alcazaba and also palaces known as Palacios Nazaries which actually consist of three palaces, namely Palacio del Mexuar, Palacio de Comares and Palacio de los Leones, all of them were built in the 14th century. The last ‘Palace of the Lions’ is spectacular and has a courtyard consisting of numerous small archways supported by 124 elegant marble columns, a water channel runs down the centre of the courtyard with small fountains and a large fountain and shallow bath in the centre supported by 12 stone lions. Sadly the fountain and lions were covered with a white sheet during our visit as renovations were taking place. To the east of the ‘Court of Lions’ is the Hall of Kings, this became a Christian Church under Ferdinand and Isabela and it is presumed that before it had been a Mosque under the Muslim rulers.

Charles V who was a grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella and became The Holy Roman Emperor built a Palace in the grounds of the Alhambra. Shown in the photograph to the left. Work began on this Palace in 1527, in contrast to its Moorish surroundings it was built in a Renaissance style, on the outside it is rectangular in shape and on the inside it is has a circular courtyard on two levels supported by slender columns. Whilst the palace looks complete it was never finished completely because Charles V became more and more nervous of the frequent earthquakes.

Whilst the earthquakes in the region have done some damage to the Alhambra, much more damage was achieved by the French who were in control of Granada from 1808 until 1812, the Palaces were used as barracks and when they left they almost demolished two of the towers with explosives and damaged several others.

In 1984 the Alhambra became an Unesco World Heritage site.  It is more than well worth a visit, your ticket will have a time on it, this time is not the time for you to enter the Alhambra as I thought!  But a time for you to visit the 3 palaces, I had to go out again and get the bar code on my ticket changed so that I could see the palaces at a later time.

Where I am living now at Salir in Portugal there are remains of a Moorish castle just 300 metres from the house, there is a local story of an enchanted princess who when the Christians defeated the Moors at Salir in 1189 was left in the castle by her father Alcalde Aben-Fabilla. From a nearby mountain, Aben-Fabilia saw his captive daughter in the hands of the Christians and with his right hand made a sign of the Star of David, uttering some mysterious words she was turned into a statue of stone.

Sometime later the statue disappeared, but legend has it that on a full moon night she can be sometimes seen in the grounds of the castle. Ever in the hope that one day she will stroll down from the castle, I have built a stone seat for her in my garden in the hope that she will come and sit on it, if she does I will take Irving Washington’s advice and will not speak to her!