Granada

by Read Listen Learn

Granada.

Granada is a beautiful, old city in Andalusia in south-west Spain. It is surrounded by mountains but it is only a couple of hours from the sea. It is nearly 800 metres above sea level and, in the winter months, it can be quite cold.

It seems that there has been a town where Granada now stands since 800 B.C.E., but the city we call 'Granada' today was founded by the Moors, North African Muslim Arabs, some time shortly after 711 C.E. There was also a little Jewish village nearby called 'Garnata'. From this village came the name: Granada. It shows how cosmopolitan the city was, even from the beginning. The Moors soon built up a well-organized, Muslim city but welcomed non-Muslims and Granada had large numbers of Christian, Jewish and, later on, Gypsy citizens.

In this atmosphere, trade, science and learning grew. While the Muslim emir kept peace and order, Granada's different peoples were free to do business and exchange ideas. But, through the centuries, Spain remained a country constantly at war. The Catholic kings of Spain, living in Madrid, fought to get back parts of their land taken by the Moors. The Moors fought to keep what they had taken or, when possible, to take more.

Little by little, the Christian Spanish began to beat the Muslim invaders and push them out of Spain. Andalusia was one of the last provinces re-conquered but, when the great Moorish city of Cordoba fell to a Christian army, Granada's re-conquest became only a matter of time. The emirate of Granada resisted for a couple more centuries but was taken by the Spanish king in 1492, the same year that Columbus landed in the Americas.

Since then, Granada has remained part of Spain but, unwelcome after the re-conquest, the Muslim and Jewish populations are much smaller in modern times. These days, Granada is famous as a beautiful example of a Spanish/Moorish hill city and the jewel of its Moorish architecture is the Al-Hambra palace which overlooks the whole city and is, in its turn, overlooked by the snow-covered Sierra Nevada mountains, creating the perfect setting.

The palace, whose name means the 'Red One' in Arabic, was built from the 11th century C.E. on the site of the old Granada castle. It is more than a palace: it is a 'palace city'. It has a lot of different buildings and very spacious and complicated gardens all around. There are many fountains to keep the area cool; and, the beautiful, Arab-style windows give fantastic views of the city below and the mountains above.

If you want to look around all of it, it takes the average tourist three days. It is a UNESCO world heritage site (chosen by the United Nations as historically important) along with the old city that sits just below it with its old houses and streets so steep they need steps. Old Granada and the Al-Hambra palace bring a lot of tourists in the spring, summer and autumn. In the winter, they come for the ski-ing and other mountain sports.

And when the sightseeing or skiing stops, Granada has great night-life: the Bib-Rambla neighbourhood has a wide choice of restaurants but, really, Granada is famous for its 'tapas' (bar snacks), all served on little plates. These were originally used to keep flies and other insects out of the drinks. The little snack on the plate, maybe some seafood salad or an egg on toast, for example, is free and bars compete with each other to have the best 'tapas' and, so, bring in more customers.

Gypsies play music or dance in a lot of the bars and the large number of students (at 50,000 - 10% of the population) guarantees good clubs, bands and parties. Summer or winter, night or day, Granada is always busy and beautiful.