Chief Attractions (two days). 1st. Forenoon: the Cathedral (p. [76]); Placeta de la Lonja (p. [77]); Casa de los Tiros (p. [77]); Carrera del Genil; *Paseo del Salón; afternoon: Alameda del Darro (p. [78]); *View from San Nicolás (p. [79]) or from San Miguel el Alto (p. [79]).—2nd. *Alhambra (p. [79]) and Generalife (p. [87]).
Granáda (2195 ft.; pop. 69,000), once the capital of the Moorish kingdom, and now that of the province of Granada, the residence of an archbishop and seat of a university, lies most picturesquely at the foot of two hills (about 490 ft. high), which gradually slope to the E. up to the Cerro del Sol, and descend abruptly to the fertile, well-watered river-plain of the Vega. The Albaicín, the northmost of the two hills, the oldest quarter of Granada, once the residence of the Moorish aristocracy, but now inhabited chiefly by gipsies, forms a town by itself. The deep ravine of the Darro, which is generally dry as its water is much diverted for irrigation purposes, separates the Albaicín from the Monte de la Assabica, or Alhambra Hill to the S. (comp. p. [79]). The Darro, descending from the N.E., turns to the S. near the Alhambra Hill and falls into the more important Genil.
The two hills were once occupied by Iberian and then by Roman settlements, the one on the Albaicín having perhaps already borne the name of Garnata. Soon after 711 the Moors built the ‘Old Castle’ (Al-Kasaba al-Kadîma) on the site of Garnata. After the decline of the caliphate of Cordova (p. [69]) Zâwi ibn Zîri, the governor of Granada, declared himself independent in 1031, and founded here the dynasty of the Zirites, which, however, was overthrown by the Almoravides (p. [95]) in 1090. As the power of the Almohades (p. [95]) declined the native governors revolted anew. At length in 1246 Granada became the seat of the Nasride Dynasty founded by Al-Ahmar (‘Mohammed I.‘), which, after the fall of Seville, succeeded, in alliance alternately with the Castilians and the Merinides (p. [95]), in retaining possession of Granada, Málaga, and Almería for nearly 250 years. Mohammed I. offered an asylum in Granada to the Moors who were expelled from Cordova, Valencia, and Seville, and began the building of the ‘New Castle’ (Al-Kasaba al-Jedîda) on the hill of the Alhambra. His successors afterwards created the Alhambra Palace, the most sumptuous of royal residences. Thanks to their fostering care for agriculture and industry, for science, art and architecture, Granada attained such brilliant prosperity as even to eclipse the fame of the old caliphate of Cordova.
The downfall of the kingdom of Granada was at length brought about by party struggles between the Zegri, the Beni Serrâj (the Abencerrages of legend; comp. p. [84]), and other noble families, and by quarrels between king Mulei Abu’l-Hasan (d. 1485) and his son Boabdil; a welcome opportunity was thus afforded to Ferdinand and Isabella, the so-called ‘Catholic Kings’, of intervening and thus gaining their life-long object of destroying the last Moorish kingdom in Spain. After the death of his father Boabdil remained inactive when Ferdinand proceeded to besiege Málaga (p. [90]); he made one despairing attempt at resistance when the Spaniards demanded the evacuation of Granada, but in 1491 had to conclude a humiliating peace. He soon afterwards crossed the Sierra Nevada and retired to Tlemcen in N. Africa (p. [187]), where he ended his inglorious career. With the Spanish domination began the decay of the city; it was depopulated by the decrees of the Catholic Kings, the Inquisition held fearful sway here, and ere long Granada became a ‘living ruin’. Within the last few years, however, the busy tourist traffic, the establishment of sugar-factories, and the prosperous mining industry of the Sierra Nevada have somewhat repaired the fortunes of the city, and several of the old quarters have been entirely modernized. But its picturesque history, its memorials of the most glorious period of Moorish culture and art, and the striking view of the snow-mountains it affords will ever render it the most fascinating goal of travellers in Andalusia.
See ‘Granada: Memories, Adventures, Studies, and Impressions’, by Leonard Williams (London, 1906); and ‘Granada and the Alhambra’, by A. F. Calvert (London, 1907).
a. The Lower Town.
Leaving the railway-station (Pl. B, 6; tramway No. 1, see p. [73]), we follow the Calle Real de San Lázaro to the S.E. to the Paseo del Triunfo (Pl. C, 4), so named from the column in honour of the Virgin (triunfo). Here, by the half-ruined Puerta de Elvira (Pl. C, 4), begin the old Calle de Elvira and the new Gran Via de Colón (Pl. C-E, 4), both leading to the chief artery of traffic, the narrow—
Calle de los Reyes Católicos (Pl. E, 4, 5), which is built above the Darro, and connects the busy Puerta Real (Pl. E, 5), to the S.W., with the Plaza Nueva (Pl. E, 4; officially, Plaza Rodriguez Bolivar), to the N.E., at the foot of the Alhambra Hill (p. [79]).
In the Calle de Lopez Rubio, a side-street, is the so-called Casa del Carbón, once a Moorish granary, with picturesque horseshoe arches and stalactite vaulting. To the S.W. of it is the modern town-hall (Ayuntamiento).
The short streets on the opposite side lead to the Alcaicería, (Pl. E, 4, 5), with its numerous columns, which was burned down in 1843, once a Moorish market-hall (Al-Kaisariya), resembling the Oriental sûks (p. [335]), and to the modernized Plaza de Bibarrambla (Pl. E, 5), named after a Moorish city-gate which once stood here. A few paces from these lies the Placeta de las Pasiegas. Here, surrounded by buildings which mar its effect, rises the—