Granada “Its charm lay, of course, in its situation – the immense green plain, the snow covered mountains, the elms and cypresses of the Alhambra hill, the streams of noisy, hurrying water.” Excerpt from “ South from Granada” by Gerald Brenan

The origins of Granada date back to the 5th Century when it was known as Ilbyr, 500 years later the Romans inhabited the area and called it Illibris. The arrival of the Moors saw during the following two and a half centuries a cultural, artistic and economic boom and during the Nazrid period the spectacular Alhambra was built.

The origins of Granada date back to the 5th Century when it was known as Ilbyr, 500 years later the Romans inhabited the area and called it Illibris. The arrival of the Moors saw during the following two and a half centuries a cultural, artistic and economic boom and during the Nazrid period the spectacular Alhambra was built.

Alhambra comes from the Arabic Al- qala’at al-hamra meaning “the red fort” and perched on top of La Sabika is like something from a fairy tale, (Gerald Brenan refers to it as a “glorified gazebo”, which seems a bit harsh!). There are three distinct groups of buildings on Alhambra hill (known as Sabika by the Moors.) The Casa Real (Royal Palace), the summer gardens of the Generalife and the Alcazaba, the last fortress of the 11th Century Ziridian rulers when the Nasrids made Granada their capital.

It was the last Muslim city to fall to the Christians and the Catholic monarchs Isobel of Castile and Fernando of Aragón entered Granada in 1492 and actually inhabited the Alhambra for a time. They restored some rooms and converted the mosque, but left the palace unaltered. By the 18th Century the Casa Real was used as a prison and in 1812 it was taken and occupied by Napoleon’s forces. They looted and damaged whole sections of the Palace and while retreating tried to blow up the whole complex. A wounded soldier who stayed behind and destroyed the fuses and thwarted the destruction of one of the most visited and admired monuments in the world.

On the hill facing the Alhambra is the Albaicín with its maize of narrow, hilly streets and whitewashed houses with their secluded cármenes (inner gardens). The Plaza de San Nicolas stands at the highest point of the Albaicín and is famous for its magnificent view of the Moorish palace across the Darro valley. The Sacromonte is the gitano (gypsy) quarter and has been inhabited since the 18th Century. The population live in caves that have been dug in the hillside and from these clans many of Spain’s best flamenco guitarists, singers and dancers have evolved.

Many caves that lie on the far side of the old Moorish wall have been deserted since severe flooding in 1962. Granada a beautiful, romantic, individual and distinctive city is an important university town, a quarter of its inhabitants studying or teaching at the illustrious and very old university. Carlos I of Spain and V of Germany founded the university, it was inherited from the old Islamic University founded by Sultan Yusef I several centuries before.

Loja with its outstanding scenery and immensely historic town centre is also called surco intrabético as it bisects the Bética mountain range and lies in the high plateau linking Andalucía with the eastern part of Spain. This amazing landscape with heights ranging from 487 metres in the town area, to 1614 in the Sierra de Loja mountain range, offers ideal conditions for paragliding and hang gliding. The town is divided in two because it straddles the banks of the Río Genil and has thus inherited the name “ the Town of the Water”. It is largely a farming area with many hectares of olive groves.

La Vega “…. But this difference can be accounted for by the fact that they have in their possession one of the richest irrigated plains in Europe, where wheat and beans and potatoes and tobacco and sugar-beet and maize grow to perfection among pomegranate bushes and huge olive trees” Excerpt from “South from Granada” by Gerald Brenan

The municipalities of Santa Fe, Cullar Vega, Las Gabias and Churriana de la Vega surround it. The Granada Vega is a specially protected agricultural area, it extends from the west side of the city and occupies the Genil river basin and is also watered by the river of that name. La Vega covers an area of 14,69 metres ² and lies 618 metres above sea level, the municipal area is made up of Purchil, Ambroz and Belicena. The main crops grown here are tobacco, espárragos (asparagus), maize, and olives. There are many villages dotted over the flat fertile lands of the Vega de Granada rich with history. The most “famous” being Fuente Vaqueros is the birthplace of Federico García Lorca, Andalucía’s greatest poet and dramatist. It is said that his ghost still walks the streets and plazas of Granada. Lorca returned to Granada in 1936 at the time of Franco’s coup, where he, considered a Republican sympathiser was hunted down at the house of a friend and two days later was found brutally murdered in an olive grove near the village of Aznar to the east of the city.