Not far from Avila is the famous palace of El Escorial, where most of the kings and queens of Spain are buried. Castile isn't the only part of Spain with castles, of course. If you were visiting Spain today, you could stay overnight in many of these castles and pretend you were a king or queen of lovely Spain. These castles made into hotels are called "paradores," and a visit to one of them is great fun.
Because Castile is in the very heart of Spain, the capital, Madrid, is located there. Madrid is a lively, bustling, modern city of more than 1½ million people. It is the highest capital in Europe, being almost half a mile above sea level in the center of the great mesa or tableland of Castile. Madrid is not a very old city compared with such ancient cities as Avila, but it has an old section built around the Plaza Mayor—the main square—where steps lead down into winding, narrow streets with arches and covered sidewalks. The larger part of Madrid is a modern city with wide boulevards lined with trees, where people can sit at sidewalk terrace cafés sipping coffee or wine or lemonade and watching other people streaming by.
Sometimes it seems that everybody in Madrid lives outdoors all the time, because there are always so many people on the streets all day and all night. Meals are served very late—lunch is at 2 o'clock or later, and dinner not until about 10. Concerts, plays and movies don't start until 11 o'clock at night, or even midnight. Even very young children and babies stay up late with their parents, to visit with friends at a sidewalk café or to go to a movie. Only in the middle of the day, when it is hot, everybody goes indoors for a long nap. This is called a "siesta," and during siesta time the streets of Madrid and all other Spanish cities are deserted. Shops and offices are closed. There is almost no traffic on the streets and boulevards. From 1 to 5 every afternoon, a stranger in Spain might think that a great calamity had happened and made Spain a land of sleeping princes and princesses.
After siesta, the streets wake to an even more bustling life than before. Offices and stores open again to serve their customers until 7 or 8 o'clock at night. The sidewalk cafés and restaurants become busier than ever. Every chair is taken, and the conversation goes on at such a fast rate that unless you understood Spanish very well, you could be lost in the rushing sound of it.
Spain has other proud cities besides Madrid. Two, whose history goes way back to the days of the Moors, are Granada and Toledo.
Granada is the city in Andalusia which the Moors loved most and held longest. They fought hard to keep it, and when they finally surrendered it to Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492 they wept bitterly, for it seemed to them they had lost a Paradise. The great fortress-palace of the Moors in Granada is called the Alhambra, which means "red castle." About a hundred years ago an American author, Washington Irving, went to live in the Alhambra. He found the romantic castle very much as the Moors had left it, except for the dust which hadn't been removed in 400 years. He walked through the echoing corridors and into the moonlit courtyards with their silent fountains. He talked with dozens of old Spanish and gypsy storytellers to learn all he could about the Alhambra. He even claimed he could see the ghosts of the sultans who had once lived there. Then he wrote a book, Tales of the Alhambra, which we can still read and enjoy. Because of his book, the Alhambra was cleaned and restored to all its former beauty.
Today the carved white and golden stonework of this castle shines with the splendor of long ago. One of its most interesting courtyards is called the Court of the Lions. Twelve very old stone lions, each with a different expression on his face, stand in a circle in the center, supporting the curved bowl of a fountain on their backs. Out of each lion's mouth trickles a little stream of water, helping to cool the air. Everyone who visits the Alhambra loves these funny old lions and goes away with a picture of them.
