Postcard from Spain - Tales from the Alhambra

The Alhambra, a huge complex of palaces, fortifications and gardens overlooking Granada, is truly magnificent. It’s a testament to Moorish design, Islamic art and huge UNESCO restoration grants. It’s also a fantastic example of a high-tech booking system. Just by booking on line we were able to jump a lengthy and, as we strolled past them, surprisingly spiteful queue to grab a couple of audio tours and head for the palace.

The downside of on line booking is that the most evil computer since HAL randomly allocated us a ticket entry time of 8:30am. Granada was just hotting up, but inside the palace it was cool on the verge of cold. This is the idea, that while the city bakes, the princes loll on pillows and eat figs in the cool while a little stream trickles through the courtyard.

After visiting this place, I upgraded my fantasy dwelling from country estate to palace and decided that I could easily live with being quite offensively wealthy.

The audio tour draws a lot on Washington Irving’s book, ‘tales from the Alhambra’. When he lived here the place was a ruin inhabited by gypsies. Now the only wanderers are international tours. The reading of the passages were good, romantic stuff, but I rather hoped for a guest appearance by a headless horseman.

The Alhambra is incredibly decorated, Islamic art favouring calligraphy and repeated patterns. Quite a contrast with British castles, which if you visit them today seem bare of any decoration. That’s because Brits favoured tapestries as decoration. These were useful because they could be pulled over doorways and windows to keep out the perpetually howling wind, or huddled under like a posh blankie…or just burned if push came to shove.

The decoration of the Alhambra also served to sooth the inhabitants and make them forget their troubles. The Brits had alcohol for this. How ironic that these two great cultures could not set up better reciprocal trade. How often a Moorish prince mush have wondered ‘what the f**k am I going to do with all these lemons?’ while miles distant, a British Duke sat in his drafty castle, nursing a gin and tonic and musing that a slice of something, but he didn’t know what, would improve it immeasurably.