Tag: Alhambra

The Eternal Symmetry of the Alhambra

The Alahambra in Granada has a history going back to the 11th century. It was a Zirid fortress, then a 13th and 14th century Nasrid royal palace and fortress complex. Like all Nasrid palaces, it’s a harmonious blend of space, light, and water, featuring intricate decorations and inscriptions, and it’s quite wonderful. Despite the crowds and the selfie-seekers, one of whom is immortalised below. We couldn’t get rid of her.

But in 1492 (the same year, as any English schoolchild knows, that ‘Columbus sailed the ocean blue‘), Catholic monarchs captured Granada, the last bastion of Moorish rule in Spain. It became a royal court for some time before falling into disrepair, was damaged by Napoleon’s troops, and was eventually discovered by 19th century Romantic travellers. Rediscovered, restored, it’s now a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Here’s some decorative detail. Also symmetrical.

And so it’s here I’ve come to celebrate symmetry for Leanne’s Monochrome Madness, hosted this week by Dawn of The Day After. We visited in 2019.

The Alhambra

What can I say about the Alhambra in Granada that hasn’t been written a hundred times before? I shan’t even try. Since the 9th century this striking hillside site just outside Granada has been a fortress, an Islamic palace, a Royal palace, gardens, a whole city. It’s even been an abandoned ruin. Javi’s grandmother used to come up to this abandoned place with her friends for picnics.

Now it’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

We tried to imagine what this place meant to those who lived here over the centuries. Southern Spain is hot. For months it’s rarely cool, even at night. Here are cool courtyards; formal canals and ponds; trickling or cascading fountains; elegant chambers with exquisitely, delicately carved tracery; slender columns; magically evanescent roof spaces reaching heavenwards.

I offer you a scrapbook of images. You can find history lessons, detailed descriptions elsewhere. I don’t offer you selfies. I left that to the – mainly younger – visitors who wanted only to pose and pose and pose again for yet another image against a beautifully wrought backdrop to which they paid no attention whatever.