Interesting Facts about Alhambra (Granada, Spain)

I have posted hundreds of pictures on my Facebook and Instagram account from the Sunday visit of wonderful Alhambra Palace. However, I think that many of you have no idea, what is it and how is this palace significant for Granda and Spain in general. Thus, I decided to collect a little bit of information from different sources and put in a short description for you, my friends. If you feel like reading and learning more about this miracle, you can find all my sources below the text.

Historical introduction - Historical introduction

• The Alhambra was so called because of its reddish walls (in Arabic, («qa’lat al-Hamra’» means Red Castle). ↑
• Originally designed as a military area, the Alhambra became the residence of royalty and of the court of Granada in the middle of the thirteenth century (source).
• Then came king Mohammed ben Al-Hamar (Mohammed I, 1238–1273), this is the time of “ the beginning of the Alhambra’s most glorious period” (source).
• After the conclusion of the Christian Reconquista in 1492, the site became the Royal Court of Ferdinand and Isabella (where Christopher Columbus received royal endorsement for his expedition), and the palaces were partially altered to Renaissance tastes (source).
• Alhambra’s late flowering of Islamic palaces were built for the last Muslim emirs in Spain during the decline of the Nasrid dynasty who were increasingly subject to the Christian Kings of Castile(source).
• After being abandoned, the building was occupied by squatters and then re-discovered by British intellectuals.
• Alhambra was extended by the different Muslim rulers who lived in the complex. However, each new section that was added followed the consistent theme of “paradise on earth”(source).

• The decoration consists for the upper part of the walls, as a rule, of Arabic inscriptions -mostly poems by Ibn Zamrak and others praising the palace- that are manipulated into geometrical patterns with a vegetal background set onto an arabesque setting (“Ataurique”)(source).
• Much of this ornament is carved stucco (plaster) rather than stone. Tile mosaics (“alicatado”), with complicated mathematical patterns (“tracería”, most precisely “lacería”), are largely used as paneling for the lower part. Similar designs are displayed on wooden ceilings (Alfarje)(source).

This list can go on and on, but I will stop here and let you explore a little bit more by yourself. I just want to comment on the text above. When you go inside of Alhambra you feel very special, I think that’s why more than 6000 of tourists visit it almost every day during the summer season.

All walls, windows, and ceiling decorations within the palaces come from Andalusian art in Granada, and after the Christian conquest in 1492, “the open work was filled up with whitewash, the painting and gilding effaced, and the furniture soiled, torn, or remove”. So much history in one building! If you still don’t have this place on your travel list — add it!