“But the most surprising thing is what lies below. “The artistic beauty of the Alhambra aboveground is undeniable,” Martín-Lagos said in Spanish as we hopped over a metal barrier and walked along the fortress’s defensive walls. Finally, Ignacio Martín-Lagos, a conservation officer, arrived and declared that he would be my Virgil to the palace’s subterráneo, a dimension of the complex that he said holds a special fascination for him. The Courtyard of the Lions in the Nasrid Palace.Īfter reporting at a special office to fill out a string of forms, I cooled my heels for a half-hour in the company of an affable security guard named Jaime, who was wearing an earpiece, aviator sunglasses and a black blazer with a green “A” sewn onto his lapel. I received an urgent phone call: I had been approved to visit at 9 the next morning. After emailing palace officials for weeks without response, I had already arrived in Granada when they bluntly denied my request. Gaining permission to visit its off-limits subterranean sections had been challenging. It’s also one of the most strictly controlled thanks to its status as an Islamic outpost seized by Christians, which still has political overtones more than five centuries later. The Alhambra is the most popular attraction in Spain, drawing over two million visitors annually. This article is a selection from the September/October 2023 issue of Smithsonian magazine SubscribeĪt least, that was my hope. Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine now for just $19.99 Its interior walls are covered floor to ceiling with carved script in classical Arabic, which scholars have translated as praise for Allah, snippets of poetry and celebrations of the Nasrid rulers.īut on this morning’s visit, I was heading for a more mysterious world: the Alhambra’s secret network of underground tunnels and chambers.Ĭrowning a plateau above the city of Granada, the 35-acre Alhambra-the magnificent palace fortress of the last Islamic rulers of Spain-boasts stunning examples of Moorish architecture. On my first visit, I had hardly known where to rest my eyes as I wandered its gorgeous chambers adorned with latticework and geometric patterns, its elegantly proportioned courtyards with burbling fountains, and the surrounding rose and orange gardens. The most famous site is the Nasrid Palace, named after the ruling dynasty. By now, the morning sunlight was making the Alhambra live up to its original name, al-Qal’ah al-Hamra, “the red fort.” An ornate archway led into the complex itself, an array of palaces and gardens covering 35 acres. For over two centuries in the Middle Ages, it was the crown jewel of the Emirate of Granada, which stretched across Spain’s Mediterranean coast from modern-day Gibraltar past the snowcapped Sierra Nevada.Īfter crossing a stone bridge over the River Darro, I took a little-known back route into the palace called Cuesta del Rey Chico, a steep foot trail squeezed into a leafy ravine where the only sound was the water cascading from antique terra-cotta pipes. Poets have rhapsodized about the structure’s fairytale beauty since the finest craftsmen of the Arab world built it nearly 800 years ago. The first glow of sunlight revealed the titanic walls and turrets of the palace-fortress complex called the Alhambra looming above me on a spectacular crag. It was well before dawn when I set off on foot through Granada’s oldest neighborhood, El Albaicín, an intricate brocade of cobbled streets overhung with fragrant jasmine trees.
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