We’re off tonight, winging it to Madrid for a couple of weeks in Spain. Most of our time will be spent in Andalusia, the province in the south that includes the cities of Cordoba, Seville, and Granada. We’ll be traveling with our friends Paul and Sue N., who survived a trip to Mexico with us just a year ago.
And, oh yes, that title. There are a number of anecdotes surrrounding the title of Luis Bunuel’s great film “Un chien andalou.” It is certainly a free association, since the title has no relationship to the film itself. Bunuel himself claimed that the phrase occurred in a poem he had written. Others claim that it alludes to a Spanish idiom: “The Andalusian dog howls –someone has died!
We took the train to EWR early, planning to meet the Nelsons in the United Club. We breezed through security and were soon having a drink while we waited. After a bit of confusion involving multiple United Clubs, we made our rendezvous and started catching up.
United did us proud this time: on-time takeoff, pleasant crew.
The wait at passport control in Madrid was just silly: something like an hour and a quarter standing in line foll0wed by the most cursory passport check imaginable. Things went pretty well after that: a shuttle bus brought us from Terminal 1 to Terminal 4, where trains leave for central Madrid. This is certainly the cheapest transportation from an airport to a city center that we’ve experienced: 3 Euros a head!
Our train to Cordoba departed from one of Madrid’s two major train stations, the Puerta de Atocha, and, after navigating some poor signage, we found our way to the separate boarding area for high speed trains. The Spanish national rail service, Renfe, runs some very fast trains. Nathaniel will be pleased to know that his grandparents rode on a Spanish bullet train!
We were prepared for some spotty weather during the first week of our trip. Andalusia normally receives four or five rainy days in March, but people tell us it had already rained for a week. And, sure enough, we arrived in Cordoba to a deluge. We were all drenched, just running to the back of the taxi, grabbing our bags, and dashing into the hotel.
Las Casas de la Juderia de Cordoba is a gorgeous small hotel, made up of five separate houses that have been renovated in a way that retains their original appeal.
By the time we’d had a brief siesta, the rain had stopped and the sun was poking through in patches.
The streets in the old town are narrow, cobbled, and lined with whitewashed houses with flowers spilling out from planters.
We walked around the Mesquita, Cordoba’s mosque / cathedral, and down to the Guadalquivir River. Here are the travelers basking in the sun.
The main bridge across the river stands on Roman foundations. The river was in spate, with whole trees spinning along and the waters overflowing the banks.
We wandered through a number of charming streets east of the cathedral; the pictures give some sense of the scenes that dot the city.
We managed to find a tapas joint that opened by 7:30, a blessing for the jet-lagged. Casa Pepe was terrific. We had tapas-sized portions of baccala, jamon iberico, sardines, eggplant, and croquettes. Sue had sea bass for a main, while the rest of us tried the extraordinary belotta pork. The others drank local wine while I had a palo cortado, an unusual sherry initially aged to become a fino or amontillado but inexplicably loses its veil of flor.
Before heading home we had a glimpse of the Mezquita by night.
I was wide awake early, at 6 AM, feeling refreshed after a good first night’s sleep. I went down at 6:30 in search of coffee, and, rather than send me to a cafe the lovely staff at the hotel brought me a cappuccino to drink in the lounge. I went down to the breakfast room at 8 and Sue joined me soon after. The breakfast room is rather beautiful, and the buffet terrific. The fruit is extraordinary, especially the oranges and orange juice.
Paul and Sue had had a rough first night, and slept in, so Sue and I headed for the Mezquita, the great mosque that had been turned into a cathedral after the Reconquest. The mosque covers a full, very large city block. You enter first into the Patio des Aranjas, an enormous courtyard filled with orange trees (it was probably planted with palm trees during Moslem times). It is said to be the oldest walled garden in the world.
The normal entrance to the mosque would have been in the center of the north wall, but the tourist entrance is now in the northwest corner. Once inside, you gaze through the dimly lit space into what seems to be an infinite number of arched columns.
This image gives a better sense of the luminous colors of the arches.
These images are all from the oldest part of the mosque, built in the years after 785. The Muslim conquest of the Iberian peninsula had begun in the early years of the century, and by 781 Abd al-Rahman I, the first Emir of Cordoba, had quashed all resistance by the Visigoths who had ruled the peninsula since the end of the Roman Empire.
During the next two centuries, Cordoba grew in importance and size; some scholars believe it was, along with Constantinople, the largest city in in the Western world. In order to accommodate the growing number of worshipers, the mosque was expanded three times between 833 and 988; the first two expansions added bays (defined by rows of columns) to the south, while the third, undertaken by the last Emir before the Reconquest, expanded the mosque laterally, adding eight naves to the east. The second of these expansions added the mosque’s most remarkable features, including a new mihrab, a small octagonal alcove that served to orient worshipers to the quibla, or direction of prayer, as they prostrated themselves. Interestingly, the mosque is not oriented toward Mecca, but rather toward Morocco. Explanations for this vary. Many guidebooks claim that this orientation was dictated by a preexisting Visigoth church dedicated to St. Vincent, but this claim, as well as an earlier one that the
The mihrab itself and especially the horseshoe arch that leads to it is one of the most beautiful religious structures we have ever seen.
The mosaics were created by Byzantine artisans loaned to the Emir by the Eastern Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas.
After the reconquest of Spain–Cordoba fell to King Ferdinand II of Castile in 1236–the Christian rulers continued to employ Muslim artisans; they, and the style of artwork they created, are called Mudéjar. The first Christian chapel was established already in 1236 underneath the large ribbed vault that is now called the Villaviciosa Chapel.
The back wall of the chapel is almost as extraordinary as the mihrab.
The mosque’s character was changed forever, though, beginning in 1523, when construction was begun on a Renaissance cathedral smack in the middle of the mosque.
This picture, looking into the transept from the crossing, shows how the cathedral was built: some of the mosque’s arches were destroyed, while the other walls were simply built on top of the arches.
The choir has intricately carved stalls.
The baroque altar dates from the seventeenth century.
We had already spent two hours in the Mezquita when Paul and Sue caught up with us; we were more than happy to do the whole thing again!
One final note. The mosque’s minaret was originally refunctioned as a bell tower, but it was damaged in a storm in 1589; a new bell tower was built that incorporated the minaret. Here is the iconic view of the tower, seen from the “street of the flowers.”
After grabbing a very quick bite–Spanish ham on a baguette, eaten on the hoof–we had a look at Cordoba’s Alcazar or royal palace. Ferdinand and Isabella spent a good deal of time here and in fact conducted their interviews with Chris Columbus before he took their money and their blessing to the new world. Not a lot left to see, however. Here are three musketeers with the Alcazar gardens behind them.
Kings and Queens behind us, we undertook an exploration of the Jewish quarter. We passed through an interesting series of courtyards set aside for craftsmen.
There are apparently only three synagogues left in all of Spain, and one of them is in Sevilla. It is a small space, probably meant for a small community; although the excavations revealed a lot of damage, much of the stone fretwork has survived.
Turning a corner, we came face to face with…a bullfighting museum!
I admit that I was more than a little unsettled, because it brought back long suppressed memories of my one bullfight: in Pamplona in 1970 during the “running of the bulls.” It is a cruel, gory extravaganza. The museum, in a lovely old mansion, is very well done, with displays not just of toreadors, but of bull breeding, matador training, etc.
OK, a day with a mosque turned into a cathedral, a synagogue dug from the rubble, and the demise of many bulls, what was left? Well, Cordoba’s famous patios, that’s what. Virtually all the homes in the old town have a central patio, where the family goes to escape the heat. There is even an annual competition to choose the best-decorated patio run by, what else, the Cordoba Patio Association. We strolled to the San Basilio neighborhood, where a number of families have banded together to offer a patio tour.
The patios are really lovely, but, in the end, much of a muchness. It was a nice stroll around the neighborhood, though.
And yes, they do take the whole thing very seriously.
After a drink back at the hotel (one of the things we can’t figure out is how to get a drink before dinner: the bars all serve food and don’t open until 8:30!) we had dinner at a great place called Casa Rubio.
More rounds of tapas followed by delicious main courses: lamb for the ladies, venison for the gents.
We were a bit sad to leave the Casas de la Juderia, with its gorgeous patios and gardens. But Seville called and we were soon on a fast medium-distance train bound for the province’S capital. Which whisked us there in less than forty minutes. And of course it was raining when we arrived.
Our hotel, the Posada de Lucero, shared one feature with our hotel in Cordoba: it was made up of a series of sixteenth-century houses. The resemblance stopped there. For while the patios remained, they served as nodes for walkways between the highly modernized wings of the hotel.
Our rooms weren’t ready so early in the morning, so we set off for a ramble through the old town. But then the rains returned and we were soon desperate for somewhere dry and warm. Our first attempt was abortive. We found a restaurant with hours posted between noon and three. It was 12:20, but when I stuck my head in, I was waved off and asked to wait for five minutes. More than ten minutes later we were told the restaurant was closed “because the boss was gone.” We soon found that the places that were open were full, as everyone sought shelter from the downpour. Asking at one full bar for advice, we were directed up onto a kind of catwalk around a patio. The bar seemed to be closed, but, as we walked away, Sue heard someone say “Hola,” and, as she turned a woman was lookig directly at her.
The food was remarkably good! Goat cheese with Valencia orange marmalade and roasted artichokes with a variety of peppers…washed down, for me, by a sherry.
The rain had let up, and we took a stroll through the narrow, twisting alleyways of the Barrio Santa Cruz.
This area had originally been the Moorish souq; it had then become the jewish quarter. Today it is the most charming quarter of Seville; so charming that its residents are being driven out by Air BnB’s and serviced apartments. The neighborhood takes its name from this splendid wrought iron cross in the Plaza de Santa Cruz that marks the location of a church destroyed by Napoleon’s troops during the French invasion.
As in Cordoba, many of the houses are built around patios.
Next stop was the Alcazar Real, the palace that has been the residence of royalty for more than two thousand years, dating back through Visigoth, Moorish, and Christian rule. The walls that surround the fortified castle are Almohad, the last Muslim dynasty, from the twelfth century.
Aside from the walls, there is very little left of the Muslim palace. This small space, the Patio de Yeso, with its rectangular pool and Almohad arches, is all that remains.
The main palace complex is grouped around the Patio de la Monteria.
On the right is the Casa de la Contratacion, or Chamber of Commerce, established by Isabella to regulate trade with the new discovered Indies. The upper floors contain thee royal apartments, occupied by the King and Queen on visits to Sevilla, and closed to the public.
The real glory of the Alcazar is the Palace of Pedro the Cruel, one of the finest examples of Mudejar craftsmanship.
The facade is dominated by the intricate detail of the fine fretwork–called sebka work. It is more evident in these details.
The palace as a whole is often cited as the finest example of Mudejar art.
The interior is organized around a large, richly decorated courtyard, the Patio de las Dancellas.
Every inch of the rooms surrounding the courtyard is decorated with sebka work and mosaics. The most magnificent is the Salon de las Embajadores, or Hall of the Ambassadors. It is ablaze with mosaic tiles, painted stucco, and gilt.
It is especially noted for its extraordinary cupola.
We had a lot of miles under our feet, and we decided to take a late afternoon siesta.
Dinner was joyous and even a bit riotous. We took a cab to a dark, narrow street and had a bit of trouble finding the restaurant, Señor Congrejo. Small sign out front, darkened doorway…but the door eventually opened and we were welcomed into an intimate space with a bar on the left and just a few tables against the right wall and into a slight opening at the back: no more than 20 seats plus eight at the bar. Very cool, very modern, all in gray.
But the service and the atmosphere were anything but modern cool. We were served by one of the owners, Fatima, who looks after the wine, and Nico, our waiter whose favorite poet is Emily Dickinson. Although the menus were in English, we were having some trouble figuring out the concept: a page of appetizers, a page of small plates, and a page of fish. So we put ourselves in Nico’s hands and he brought out a succession of extraordinary dishes, each accompanied by a different glass of wine chosen by Fatima. We started with Gilda, a skewer of mussels and vegetables that had been stewed in an escabeche; then came artichoke leaves and fish roe.
This was followed by an extraordinary tart with anchovy cream showered with tapioca flakes.
Then came a Philippine dish of scallops with mango; then an amazing cream of seafood and chickpeas; and finally a whole red mullet for the table.
All of the wines were good, some memorable. Everyone around us was having a great time; the atmosphere couldn’t have been better. If I lived in Sevilla I’d come every week.
We got a late start, awakened at 5 AM by yelling in the street and then falling back to sleep. After another great breakfast buffet, we set out to meet Paul and Sue at Sevilla’s cathedral.
We stopped on the way, though, to have a look at another church, El Salvador. Upon entering you are confronted with a soaring but shallow space dominated by altars gleaming with gold. The high altar gives some idea of the baroque glories (excesses?) of the church.
I’m normally allergic to ecclesiastical baroque–an allergy nurtured by too many German gothic churches that have been whitewashed and drowned in gold–but this was an impressive space. And the carvings, described as Sevilla Realism, were interesting if not quite moving. This one, for example, gives a new layer of meaning to the idea of the crown of thorns.
Seville’s cathedral isn’t far from El Salvador, but it is a world apart in terms of style. The largest gothic church in the world, it trails only St. Peter’s in Rome and St. Paul’s in London as Europe’s third largest church. Like the Mezquita in Cordoba, it has a complex history. A large Visigothic cathedral stood on the site until 1172, when the Almohads demolished it and built a mosque that was to be the greatest in all of Islam. When Ferdinand III reconquered the city in 1248, the mosque was given over for Christian worship. Some elements of the mosque remain, notably a huge patio filled with orange trees and, in particular, its bell tower, the Giralda, which was originally the minaret of the mosque. The Giralda has become the symbol of Sevilla; it is visible from miles around.
Something this large doesn’t just spring up overnight! Work began in 1401, but the cathedral wasn’t consecrated until 1507. Worship has been interrupted twice, though, by the collapse of the lantern above the crossing: one already in 1511 and then again in 1888. It does make for a rather edgy visit.
The interior is perhaps more impressive than beautiful. The nave rises 118 feet at the crossing, yet it has, because of the massive girth of the piers, less of the feeling of soaring lightness than a French cathedral such as Chartres. This is one of the aisles.
The cathedral does have a number of magnificent features. One of them is the enormous carved retable at the main altar. It stands nearly 70 feet high and 60 feet across. It contains 45 niches–and over 100 figures–depicting scenes from the life of Christ and the Virgin. It is the work of the Dutch artist Pieter Dancart, who designed it in 1482 and worked on it until his death in 1487. A series of master craftsmen subsequently worked according to Dancart’s design; the central section was completed in 1526, but side wings only sometime between 1540 and 1590.
Equally impressive is the vast choir with beautiful carved choir stalls, 117 in all.
The many chapels and sacristies are home to some marvelous works of art, with Zurbarans and Murillos dominating. Murillo’s late “Vision of St. Anthony” has an interesting history.
In 1874 thieves cut out St. Anthony himself and tried to sell the resulting “painting” to a gallery in New York City. The galleries purchased it and gave it to the Spanish Cosul who immediately returned it to Seville. If one looks closely, the repair is visible.
One last detail: some of the remains of Christopher Columbus are buried here. He was a regular Humpty Dumpty: some remains are probably in Santo Domingo, others perhaps in Havana. Only the remains in Sevilla have been submitted to DNA analysis. The cathedral got around to a proper monument only in 1891, but it is an impressive one: a catafalque with four more than life-size heralds representing the four Spanish kingdoms (Castile, Léon, Aragon, Navarre) bear his coffin.
We took a quick break for coffee and churros before heading down the broad and very pleasant Avenida de la Constitution toward the large square called Puerta de Jerez. Along the way we saw this guy:
That isn’t a stop-action shot; he was stationary!
Bordering the Puerta is the luxury hotel Alfonso XIII built for the Iberico-American Exposition of 1929. We popped in to ogle the interior, gleaming with green and gold tiles.
Just as we wanted to pop out, though, the hardest rain we had experienced so far came pelting down. One of the porters kindly called us a cab and we hightailed it back to the dry safety of our hotel.
After a short siesta, we had an afternoon that was full of interest. Our hotel was in the Santa Catarina district of the Old Town, and we took a walking tour north through that district and into the San Julian and Feria districts. We made our way through a labyrinth of narrow, twisting streets, always alert for cars (if you don’t squeeze against a wall you’re liable to lost a toe or two). Very near our hotel is the Iglesia de Santa Catalina with a fine Mudejar tower. Walking north, we came to the Palacio de las Dueñas, the ancestral home of the Dukes of Alba. It looked very interesting, but was just closing, so we resolved to return the next day.
What wonderful neighborhoods these are: teeming with bars and restaurants, with a lovely square round every corner. It was now early evening, and every seat was taken, while crowders of drinkers spilled out onto the streets. This is the church of San Juan de la Palma with its square.
And this is the plaza of Santa Isabel.
The streets are lined with lovely apartment buildings with characteristic wrought iron balconies and even more characteristic white and goldenrod color schemes.
Our final goal was the Convent of Santa Paula, one of the very rare convents that can be visited. Here, too, we came too late, but we will return and report.
We had passed by a very inviting plaza in front of the church of San Marcos, and, though every table was taken, a kind young waiter set up an extra table for us in front of the church.
Sevilla is inexpensive any way you cut it, but here, away from the tourist centers, it is astonishingly cheap. Three glasses of Manzanilla sherry and a glass of white wine came to….8 Euros!
Dinner was at an elegant restaurant housed in one of the mansions built for the 1929 exposition. Sobretablas has, like Señor Congress, one “sun” from the main Spanish restaurant guide, Repsol. But it couldn’t have been more different. Instead of the wild inventiveness and abundant warmth we had experienced the night before, the food was very good if a bit predictable and the service dignified. Highlights were a rabbit appetizer, squid main, and a delicious deconstruction of a flan. Paul and I both had suckling pig. We drank very well, as we discovered a new grape, Mencia. The wines we’ve tried so far have shown Mencia to be a more casual, spicier, but very fragrant Pinot Noir. This wine was from Galicia in the far northwest.
We started the day by a further exploration of the neighborhoods to the north. Sue and I made our way to the Basilica de la Macarena, which houses a much revered statue of the Virgin. The statue was originally housed in the church of San Gill, but a new home was especially constructed for her in 1949.
The statue is a Dolorosa of the seventeenth century, probably by Pedro Roldan; by tradition, though, it is attributed to his daughter, La Roldana, because worshipers feel that only a woman could reproduce such deep feeling.
The cult that venerates her is kind of extraordinary. The Duchess of Alba lends her jewelry to her for the processions of Holy Week, while the famous Cordoban toreador Manolete donated his most famous costume, the ‘suit of light’ to the Basilica’s treasury. If you look closely at the picture above, you’ll see two children at the base of the statue. As worshipers come forward and kiss the Virgin’s feet, the kids wipe her clean…perhaps even with antiseptic toilettes!
We had a few minutes before meeting Paul and Sue, so we did a quick tour of San Luis de los Franceses by the architect Leonardo de Figueroa. It is the church of the Jesuits, and the interior is like a miniaturized Gesu in Rome.
The church’s patio was interesting, though: perhaps it is the Patio de los Ollas?
We then met Paul and Sue for our tour of the Palacio de las Dueñas, the Seville residence of the Dukes of Alba, one of the most important Spanish aristocratic families. The palace is gorgeous, surrounded by an interlocking series of gardens.
The palace itself, in Renaissance style with significant Moorish influences, dates from the late fifteenth century. It is built around a central courtyard with palms and “false Olives.”
The palace was opened other the public only in 2016; the upper floor rooms are the private residence of the Duke and his family. The public rooms are lovely, if perhaps a bit overstuffed with “aristocratic” furniture.
The audio guide was informative, but obsessed with name dropping. If you aren’t interested in Spanish aristocratic heredity, your ears will soon glaze over. Without boring you with too much detail, it is interesting to note that the current Duke is actually named Don Carlos Fitz-James Stuart. María Cayetana de Silva, the 13th Duchess of Alba, had an interesting life; the was rumored to be intimate with Goya and be the subject of his famous La Maja Desnuda.
She died without issue and the title passed to a somewhat obscure Scottish house, the Dukes of Berwich (themselves descended from an illegitimate son of James II of England). Sorry! I know this was a rabbit hole.
The Palacio is enormously interesting; we were delighted to have found it since it isn’t in the main tourist guides.
After the obligatory siesta, we hopped a cab to the area along the river, just south of the Cathedral.
First stop was at the Hospital de la Caritas, founded in 1674 to care for the sick and aging, tasks that still performs today. The five blue tile scenes on the facade were designed by Murillo.
We weren’t able to enter the chapel, which apparently has some of the most sumptuous baroque sculpture in Sevilla.
The riverbank is less than 100 yards away; along its shore sits the Torre del Oro. This dodecagonal watchtower was constructed by the Almohads in the first years of the 13th century. It served as an anchor in the city’s defenses: it held one end of a chain that could be used to block river traffic, and it served to buttress a defensive wall that ran from Alcazar to the river.
A couple of hundred yards upstream is the Plaza de Toros of Seville. Since our stop at the bullfighting museum in Cordoba, Sue has been fascinated by the spectacle of the bullfight. So a visit to the ring was inevitable. They actually do a very nice job, with a museum stuffed with paintings, lithographs, costumes, and implements.
In the passageway around the ring there are examples of Toro taxidermy.
The ring itself is rather beautiful, as this picture of an aspiring toreador clearly shows.
Next stop was Maria Luise Park, the site of the Iberian-American Exposition of 1929. The park itself is gorgeous, a mixture of tropical and peninsular plants.
The exposition was an attempt to improve relations between Spain and countries with which it shared historical ties. Many of the buildings, like the Hotel Alfonso III, were part of the Spanish contribution. Most, but not all of the national pavilions were designed by Sevillan architects in a style that came to be known as Regionalismo. Although this style drew on earlier movements such as Art Nouveau and English Arts and Crafts, Regionalismo was deeply historicist, drawing in turn from Mudejar, Renaissance, and Baroque models. Here are a few examples.
Mudejar Pavilion (Anibal Gonzales; 1914)
Peruvian Pavilion (Manuel Piqueras Cotolí)
The grandest of the pavilions, though, is the complex in the Plaza de Espane designed by Anibal Gonzalez to serve as the centerpiece of the exposition. Let’s start with a rather poor aerial view, which one needs to get a sense of the scale of this thing.
This image gives a sense of the way that the complex sits in its setting.
And this is one of the towers that flank the thing.
If you follow the light in the last two photos, you’ll see that the sun was just beginning to break through the clouds in the first, which gave way to one of the few moments of full sunshine in our time in “Sunny Spain.”
Dinner was in a place in the twisting streets north of our hotel. Lalola is the creation of the well-known chef Javi Abascal. The setting is not exactly intimate: the restaurant occupies a 16th century mansion that has been modernized. The original space, though, is so vast that the attempts to scale it down have seen limited success. Not that we minded once the delicious food began to arrive!
Although the menu has other choices, the restaurant features Iberian pork in a number of preparations. We started with a wonderful escalivada–a small casserole of smoky grilled vegetables (eggplant, onion, tomato, and peppers). Mains were a presa of pork (a tender and well-marbled cut between the shoulder and the loin) in a champagne / truffle sauce or a pork tenderloin in a green pepper sauce with foie gras. Dinner for two for less than a hundred bucks; you eat well for not much money in Andalucia!
Watch for a guest post from the well-known traveler Susan J. as she guides our friends through the Convent of Santa Paula and then to the trendy neighborhood of Triana. Your normal correspondent was unfortunately confined to quarters.
Our trip wasn’t exactly spur of the moment, but it turns out that a long-planned odyssey to Andalusia pays dividends…which we didn’t get. Not only were we unable to book any of the magnificent state-run lodgings, the Paradors, but we were unable to obtain tickets to the most important part of the Alhambra, the Palacios Nazaríes or palaces of the Nazrid dynasty who ruled over Granada from 1232 to 1492 and built the palaces by stages. As we found out, though, there is still plenty of jaw-dropping complex to take in.
The Alhambra sits high above Granada on the Sabrika Hill, an outcropping of the Sierra Nevada. The complex was begun in 1238 by Muhammad I Ibn al-Ahmar, the founder of the Nazrid dynasty.
Our cab dropped us at the main gate, the Puerta de la Justicia of 1348. The arch within an arch is imposing.
A narrow road leads up from the gate to the main level of the Alhambra. As we turned into the large square, the heavens opened and the rain pelted down…hard.
We ran for it, passing underneath the Puerta del Vino, or Wine Gate. It is now separated from a wall that once ran to the right. It is also peculiarly named; some think that the Granada Moslems regularly violated the prophet’s prohibition against alcohol, while some think it is the result of a confusion of the Arabic words for red and wine. In the written language, the two words are distinguished only by a diacritical mark. The name Alhambra actually means “the red one,” a reference to the iron oxide which colors the clay used throughout the complex. So this gate might simply have been called “Alahambra Gate.”
We sheltered from the storm in the Renaissance palace of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain.
Designed in the style of a Florentine Palazzo by Pedro Machuca, construction began in 1527. It is an interesting concept: the enormous palace is square yet contains a circular inner courtyard.
Next stop is the Alcazaba, the oldest part of the Alhambra; the fortifications at the eastern tip of the Alhambra plateau rest on earlier fortifications from the early 11th century. When Muhammed I established the Nazrid dynasty and began construction of the Alhambra, he turned first to the fortifications overlooking Granada.
Looking toward the Torre de la Vela, the highest tower in the Alcazaba.
The roughly triangular fortifications hold a large residential area for workers and artisans; they also hold subterranean dungeons built to hold Christian prisoners of war.
The normal tour of the Alhambra would now turn to the Palacios Nazaries, the palaces of the Nazrid emirs who ruled over Granada. Tickets for this part of the Alhambra complex sell out months in advance, and we were unable to secure them.
Behind the Palace of Charles V sits the Church of Sta. Maria, built on top of the ruins of the main mosque.
The route then enters the Portal Gardens, which lead to the Partal Palace.
The Partal Palace is a pavilion structure on the edge of the Alhambra walls. It was built by Muhammad III, which makes it the oldest surviving palace in the Alhambra today.
The path then runs through gardens placed along the walls of the Alhambra; built into the walls are a number of towers that actually served as residences for members of the royal family.
These are some of these small towers; below them to the right is a sunken road used to move troops rapidly along the wall.
Leaving the Alhambra by a modern bridge, one crosses to the other side of a small valley and find the “New Gardens” of the Generalife. The Generalife was built by the Nazrid emirs from the late thirteenth into the early fourteenth century as an Almunia, a royal retreat that also served as a farm. The new gardens are 20th century creations.
The palace itself is entered through a stable (the sultans would ride across from the Alhambra) and a series of fore chambers; the core of the palace is the Patio de la Acequia (“Courtyard of the Water Canal”).
Aligned with the middle of the courtyard is also a small belvedere or mirador (lookout) chamber that projects outward from the western wall of the garden. This is probably the earliest known mirador in Nasrid architecture.
A series of small room leads to what is known as the Royal Chamber, decorated with stucco work called Sebka, a repeating series of rhombuses and arabesques.
At a level above the Patio de la Acequia is the Patio de la Sultana. We don’t know the original design and construction; what we see dates from after the Nasrid period.
The Alhambra is a remarkable creation…and we hadn’t even seen its best side.
After our siesta, we crossed the street to visit the Capilla Real, or Royal Chapel of the cathedral.
No photos or videos are allowed inside, so everything you see here is “borrowed” from the web. The chapel was built explicitly as a funerary chapel for Isabel and Ferdinand; Isabel died before its completion, and her remains moved here later. Constructed between 1505 and 1517, the chapel is a prime example of Isabelline Gothic, a style that characterized many of the projects of the Catholic Monarchs; it combines elements of late gothic, flamboyant gothic, renaissance, and Mudéjar architecture.
The first view into the nave is dominated by a remarkable rood screen. The image below shows not only the screen but the ribbed vaulting in Isabeline style.
The funerary chapel contains the funerary monuments of Isabel and Ferdinand as well as those of Juana I (the mad) and her husband, Phillip I. Quick historical sidenote for those who, like me, are not versed in the complexity of Spanish royalty: the marriage of Isabel, Queen of Castile, and Ferdinand, King of Aragon, the Catholic Monarchs, brought about the de facto unification of most of the Iberian Peninsula. After the early deaths of two of their children and a nephew, all heirs to the throne, their daughter Juana became nominal Queen of Castile and Aragon. She was declared insane, though, and confined in a royal palace, serving as queen of Castile under thee regency of Ferdinand and, after his death, as co-monarch with her son Philip II, the guy we know from Velasquez portraits. OK, pardon the intrusion.
These are the monuments themselves, looking back at the rood screen; Ferdinand and Isabela are on the right, Juana and Philip on the left.
The staircases in front lead down to the crypt, where the actual sarcophagi are held. And here are the Catholic Monarchs themselves. They were by any measure quite a remarkable couple.
The chapel’s sacristy is unusually interesting; in addition to the robes, crowns, and royal implements of the Catholic Monarchs, it holds a small but exquisite painting collection, centered around a Dirk Bouts triptych of the Deposition from the Cross (we saw a replica; the original is in Brussels for restoration). The gallery has paintings by Botticelli, Perugino, Hans Memling, and Rogier van Der Weyden.
Dinner was at a lovely modern restaurant called the Atelier Casa de Comidas.
The menu is designed for sharing, and that we did. We started with a gravlax of trout with fermented blueberries and a sauce of vermouth and vodka, and went on to a great duck breast in an incredible sauce of vermouth, a “botanical” oil, corn, and black pepper. And then a strawberry vacherin with, wait for it, green curry ice cream…which actually worked as a counterbalance to the sweetness of the meringue and berries. The staff was lovely: friendly, helpful, engaged.
Sue N. had found a tour company that offered tours of the Alhambra, including the Palacios Nazaries; she had booked a tour for us yesterday, but got only a “Pending” message, so we had no idea whether we’d be able to return or not. We awoke today, though, to find our tickets for a 3 PM tour…which made our day.
First stop, though, was Granada’s cathedral itself. The cathedral apparently looks like this when the tower is not being restored (we looked out on a wrapped tower from our hotel).
The cathedral looks very different from most Spanish cathedrals, since it was started much later, only after the capture of Granada in 1492. Construction began in 1518 and continued well into the seventeenth century; a projected second tower was never completed. Although many architects worked on the structure, the Renaissance plan was the work of Diego de Siloé.
The portal is an unusual triumphal arch; the tripartite structure would indicate a traditional three-nave interior, but their are in fact five naves, with the central nave leading to the Capilla Mayor and altar the highest.
The interior is a brilliant white with classical, rather than gothic columns.
Another unusual feature is a round Capilla Mayor rather than a semi-circular apse; the resulting form is extraordinary.
Sue and I then did a longer loop through the center of the city while Sue and Paul returned to the hotel. We had a look at the Corral de Carbon, a fourteenth century caravanserai that provided a place for merchants to store their goods, as well as shelter for themselves and their animals.
We saw some of the town’s older houses, churches, and fortifications like this one, the Casa de los Tiros, with musket barrels protruding from some of the decoration.
After a short break, we all headed back up the hill to the Alhambra. Our guide, Angela, was absolutely terrific: knowledgeable, engaging, funny, the whole package. We started back through the Generalife, learning some things we hadn’t learned before. Angela was particularly attuned to what was original (from the time of the Nasrid dynasty) and what added later.
I should say in advance that what follows is a long and detailed tour of the Palacios Nazaries (Nasrid Palaces), one of the world’t great artworks. It is at base an attempt to reconstruct for myself what I saw in this succession of rooms. You may want to stick to the pictures.
The Nasrid Palaces were built over a long period, and not all the complex survives: some parts were destroyed as subsequent emirs altered or enlarged the palaces and other parts were destroyed to make way for the Palace of Charles V. What survives is in three parts: the Mexuar, which was the semi-public space for the administration of justice and the conduct of state affairs; the Palacio de Comares, the official residence of the emir; and the Palacio de los Leones, the most private part, where the harem was located. The layout is not perspicuous: here is a floorpan.
General floor plan[a] of the Comares Palace: 1) Comares Façade, 2) Sala de la Barca, 3) Hall of Ambassadors, 4) Changing room of the baths, 5) Cold room of the baths, 6) Warm room of the baths, 7) Hot room of the baths.
Isma’il I (reigned 1314–1325) decided to build a new palace complex just east of the Alcazaba to serve as the official palace of the sultan and the state. The core of this complex was the Palacio de Comares, while the Mexuar extended to the west. The Mexuar looks totally ordinary from the outside. It has been changed and “restored” over the centuries, so that no one knows how it actually looked under the rule of the Nasrids. The Council Chamber now looks like this, with some original decoration and a great deal of later addition.
At the rear of the hall is a small room called the Oratorio, which was horribly damaged by a gunpowder explosion in the valley below in 1590. The restoration looks like this.
A passageway leads from the Council Chamber to a small patio, the Patio del Cuarto Dorado. It is at this point that the visitor begins to encounter the changes to the palaces brought about by Muhammad V’s artisans. The principle addition here is the “Comares facade” at the far end, which served as the entrance to the Comares palace.
This was for me the point at which my jaw dropped. The decorations cover every inch of the walls.
At the other side of the Patio del Cuarto Dorado a portico leads into the room called the Cuarto Dorado, or Gilded Room.
The Gilded Room itself may have served as a waiting room for the Comares Palace. It is named after its ceiling, a creation of Mujedar artisans after the fall of Granada.
Passing through the lefthand doorway of the Comares Facade, the visitor enters the palace itself. Little remains here as it was under Isma’il; the entire palace was extensively renovated by Muhammad V in the years 1354-1391. Most commentators consider this the architectural apogee of the Nasrid emirate, as more innovative architectural and artistic structures began to emerge.
The palace is organized around the Patio de los Mirtos, or patio of the Myrtles, named for the myrtle hedges that flank the reflecting pool. This architectural ensemble, with a porticoed structure adjacent to a reflecting pool, was a key feature of Nasrid palace architecture, found already in the Palacio del Partal that we saw yesterday.
This view looks toward the Palace of Charles V; the Comares Palace originally extended further, but the rooms behind the portico were destroyed to make room for the Christian structure.
This second view, from the opposite end, looks toward the heart of the Comares Palace: the Comares Tower and, below it, the Sala des Embajadores.
The arch visible in the photo above leads to the Sala de la Barca, or room of the blessings, notable for its beautiful muqarnes ceiling. Allow me a quick note on muqarnas vaulting, sometimes called stalactite vaulting. In this form, typical of Islamic architecture, projecting elements alternate with recessed ones, creating upper niches and lower “stalactites.” Here is an elaborate example from the Palace of the Lions at the Alhambra. Note that you’re looking at this upside down!
And here is a view from below, showing how muqarnas works in an archway. We first saw these forms in Capella Palatina in Palermo, where the Norman kings used Muslim artists.
Here is the actual ceiling in the Sala de la Barca.
From the Sala de la Barca one enters the most ornate of all the rooms at the Alhabra, the Salón de Embajadores. It was the throne room and the site of official celebrations. This is the view upon entering.
And this is the view back to the entrance.
The throne was positioned in this alcove, the most fully decorated of the entire room.
This image gives a sense of the decoration of the room, which combines abstract and organic motifs with epigraphic ones: poems in praise of Allah and the Emir and quotations from the Quran.
We now enter the Palace of the Lions, Muhammad V’s most significant contribution to the Alhambra; it lies to the east of the Comares Palace in an area previously occupied by gardens. The name Palacio de los Leones is modern and refers to the lions that support a fountain the palace’s central courtyard. The palace may have been the royal family’s most private spaces, but no one is really sure of it use.
The effect of walking into the Court of the Lions is not unlike that of entering the Mezquita in Cordoba, in that one is confronted by a complex array of columns and arches.
Single columns alternate with groups of two or three columns to forming a visual rhythm that highlights certain parts of the façade. At the center stands the fountain that gives its name to the entire palace.
On the east and west sides, a pavilion projects into the courtyard.
The decoration above and between the columns and especially within the pavilions and porticos is even more ornate and extraordinary that that found in the Comares Palace; you might think of it as Nasrid Rococo.
A series of extraordinary rooms are arranged around the courtyard.
General floor plan of the Palace of the Lions: 1) Fountain of the Lions, 2) Sala de los Mocárabes, 3) Sala de los Abencerrajes, 4) Sala de los Reyes, 5) Sala de Dos Hermanas, 6) Mirador de Lindaraja, 7) Patio del Harén
The hall on the eastern side of the courtyard is known as the Sala de los Reyes. It has unusual contours; rather than one space, it is divided by muqarnes arches into seven subchambers.
On the north side of the courtyard is the hall called Sala de dos Hermanas (the two sisters refer to two large slabs of marble that make up part of the pavement. The square space covered by an elaborate, indeed extraordinary muqarnes dome.
Here is a close up.
On the north side of the Sala de dos Hermanas is an arched doorway leading to a wide rectangular chamber known as the Sala de los Ajimeces or Hall of the Mullioned Windows. The chamber is covered with a long muqarnas vault ceiling composed of a number of domes that blend into one another.
The most notable feature of the space, though, is a small projecting room with double-arched windows on three sides which overlook the gardens below. This lookout chamber is known as the Mirador de Lindaraja (the name combines the Spanish word for lookout or belvedere with a corruption of an Arabic phrase). This small room, the culmination of the visit to the Nasrid Palaces, is also the most ornate of all.
What an extraordinary day! Angela had been a great guide; and the tour was enriched by conversations with another member of the tour, a professor of graphic arts from Kosovo. A Muslim himself, he knew an enormous amount about Islamic architecture, philosophy, and especially Sufism, whose ideas are reflected in the palaces.
Dinner was not exactly a bust, but it wasn’t a rousing success, either. We had had reservations at a place that only had a tasting menu, and none of us wanted that much food. I cancelled and booked a table as we walked. Only when we got there did we realize it was in a hotel. The restaurant was actually stunning: the hotel had taken over a convent, and the restaurant looked out onto a sixteenth century cloister. the food was pretty good, but wildly expensive. Oh, well.
The title is a paraphrase of a well-known poem by Garcia Lorca, “Arbolé, Arbolé,” in which a young girls is told to go, successively, to Cordoba, Sevilla, and Granada. We’re doing the reverse.
So Adios, Andalucia! I would be remiss if I didn’t mention one of the best parts of our days in the South of Spain: Sherry! Not everyone loves sherry; my wife is one of them. But the quality of wine you can get just about everywhere is superb: Finos, Manzanillas, Amontillados, and, especially, Palo Cortados are just superb.
An AVE train whisked us from Granada to Madrid in just under four hours, and a cab had us at our hotel in no time. Our hotel for the final three trips was full (or rather had only astronomically expensive rooms available), so we had booked into a rather fancy hotel for the one night. The Hotel Gran Melia Fenix was very comfortable but somewhat ostentatious. The mattress and pillow was, on the other hand, otherworldly!
We spent the late afternoon walking about in the “old town” between the Puerta del Sol and the Royal Palace. The busy Puerta del Sol, a large trapezoidal plaza, is the figurative and literal center of Spain: the Kilometer 0 stone sits at the base of the old post office, and all measurements to other places uses the stone. The old post office, from the 1760’s, is on the left; it is notorious as the headquarters of Franco’s police. Barely visible to the left of the large lamppost is an equestrian statue of Charles III. Charles III is remembered in Madrid for his many enlightened reforms: building the Prado as well as the hospital in which the Reina Sofia art museum would eventually be housed; opening the Buon Retiro Park to the public; and, especially, constructing broad avenues and plazas with fountains.
The square is given a bit of harmony by the regularity of the buildings fronting on it:
We’re told that it is perhaps best known for the huge Tio Pepe (a popular Fino sherry) sign on one side of the plaza.
A series of twisting streets–and lots of ham shops–brought us to the lovely Plaza Mayor.
That’s Phillip III on horseback; he had the square built in 1619 on the model of town squares throughout Castile. It has been witness to a great deal of Spanish history, serving, among many other functions, as the site of the auto da fe‘s of the Inquisition; heretics and others were subjected to forms of public penance, often culminating in death by burning.
Next stop was the small Plaza de la Villa, site of the old Town Hall. At the left side of the square is the Torre de los Lujanes, virtually the only building from medieval Madrid to survive. It has been repeatedly restored.
The western side of the square is dominated by the Casa de la Villa, the old town hall built in 1644 by Gomez de Mora. It, too, has seen extensive modification over the centuries.
We were approaching the cathedral and Royal Palace, but the rain and cold got the better of us and we scurried home.
Dinner was one of the most memorable of the trip. La Buena Vida was opened 22 years ago by Chef Carlos Torres. It is small and very intimate, with a front of the house staff of two, who are regularly reinforced by chef Torres himself.
He explained the menu, recommended our wine, stopped several times to chat, and, at the end of the evening, came out into the rain with us to help us into our cab! The food was wonderful. Sue and I shared a fish soup and then a gargantuan braised veal shank served with a copper pot of creamed potatoes and extra sauce. The wine was terrific: a red from Tenerife that was light, elegant, mineral, and complex.
