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Stories, history and food traditions from Granada (Page 2)

Long-form editorial pieces written by resident correspondents: cultural deep-dives, the origins of local dishes, and the people and traditions that shape everyday life in Granada.

Ripe chirimoya fruit hanging among broad leaves in a terraced orchard on the Costa Tropical, Granada, soft morning light, chirimoya costa tropical

Chirimoya Costa Tropical: How an Andean Fruit Won a PDO

Sarah Mills

How the Andean chirimoya reached Granada's Costa Tropical, why it only mattered from the mid-20th century, and what PDO and Fino de Jete mean on the label.

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Count of Tendilla Alhambra scene: a Castilian nobleman in dark late-fifteenth-century dress at an arched window of a Nasrid palace, a pomegranate on the sill, warm afternoon light on carved plasterwork

Count of Tendilla Alhambra: First Governor After 1492

James Walker

Íñigo López de Mendoza, Count of Tendilla, ran the Alhambra from 1492 to 1515. See how Granada's first Christian governor lived, ruled and wrote 6,000 letters.

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Mulhacén summit ridge in Sierra Nevada at dawn, bare rounded slopes of grey schist with late snow patches and a long shadow falling east, illustrating the Mulhacen name origin and the legend of the sultan buried on the peak

Mulhacén Name Origin: Sultan Said to Be Buried There

James Walker

Mulhacén is named for Sultan Muley Hacén, said to lie on its summit. What the name means, what records say about his death and where Nasrid kings were buried.

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Gerald Brenan Yegen: whitewashed flat-roofed houses of Yegen on a mountain slope in the Alpujarras, soft afternoon light, terraced fields and the Sierra Nevada behind

Gerald Brenan in Yegen: When Bloomsbury Came to the Alpujarras

James Walker

Gerald Brenan in Yegen: how Strachey, Carrington and the Woolfs reached his Alpujarran hamlet, what South from Granada records, and what you can still see.

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Granada inquisition auto de fe in a 17th-century Granada square, penitents in sambenitos facing a raised platform, crowd and clergy under a hard afternoon light

Granada Inquisition: The Holy Office Tribunal, 1526 to 1834

James Walker

The Granada Inquisition's permanent tribunal ran from 1526 to 1834. Its jurisdiction, autos de fe in Bibarrambla and San Jerónimo, and who it prosecuted.

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Gran via de colon granada history: a straight early twentieth-century avenue of new apartment blocks cutting through narrow medieval lanes beside the cathedral's rear facade, sepia light

Gran Via de Colon Granada History: The Cut Through the Medina

James Walker

How Granada's Gran Via de Colon was cut through the medieval medina from 1895: the Cendoya plan, 244 expropriations, lost Nasrid houses and who paid for it.

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Granada earthquakes landscape: the Vega de Granada basin below the snow-capped Sierra Nevada at dawn, faint fault-line ridges crossing the plain, illustration with no people

Why Granada Earthquakes Keep Coming: The 2026 Series and 1884

James Walker

Two Mw 4.8 quakes hit south of Granada in August 2026. Basin faults, plate collision and the 1884 Alhama disaster explain why, and what visitors should know.

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Whitewashed lanes of the Albaicín in Granada at dusk, the hillside district that resisted the July 1936 coup, with the Alhambra towers across the Darro valley

July 1936 Coup in Granada: How the City Fell

James Walker

The July 1936 coup in Granada, day by day: the garrison revolt of 20 July, the Albaicín's barricades under artillery fire, the surrender and the repression.

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A 19th-century diplomat's writing desk by a frosted window in Riga, a pen resting on unfinished pages beside a small dish of Granada pomegranates, evoking Ángel Ganivet's exile between Spain and the Baltic

Ángel Ganivet: Granada's Writer and Diplomat

James Walker

Ángel Ganivet, Granada's own writer-diplomat, wrote Idearium Español from Helsinki, drowned in Riga in 1898, and returned to San José cemetery in 1925.

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A weathered domed shrine beside an old sandstone gate in Fez's medina wall, warm late-afternoon light, cypress trees, no modern signage, evoking Boabdil's lost tomb

Boabdil's Lost Tomb: Searching for It in Fez, Morocco

James Walker Updated

Where is Boabdil buried? A 17th-century account points to a shrine outside Fez's Bab Mahrouk gate, and a 2013 scan detected bones nobody was allowed to test.

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Alhambra name meaning illustrated by the reddish rammed-earth fortress walls on Sabika Hill in warm late-afternoon light, with Granada below

Alhambra Name Meaning: Why It Is the Red One

James Walker

Alhambra means "the red one" in Arabic, expanding to "red fortress." Learn why rammed-earth walls, not torchlight or the founder's name, explain the color.

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Muhammad V Nasrid Sultan's Palace of the Lions, Alhambra, Granada, at golden hour: carved stucco arches and slender marble columns around the fountain in the Court of the Lions

Muhammad V, the Nasrid Sultan Who Built the Alhambra

James Walker

Muhammad V ruled Granada twice, survived exile in Fez, and returned in 1362 to build the Alhambra's Palace of the Lions during Nasrid Granada's golden age.

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