Skip to main content

Articles

Stories, history, and planning essays from Granada (Page 5)

Long-form editorial pieces written by resident correspondents — cultural deep-dives, food traditions, and practical planning essays for visiting the city.

Interior of the Royal Chapel sacristy museum in Granada, gilded altarpiece panels by Flemish masters displayed in a stone-vaulted Renaissance space, warm candlelight, Royal Chapel Granada paintings collection

Isabella I and the Flemish Masterpieces of Granada's Royal Chapel

James Walker Updated

Inside the Royal Chapel sacristy, Isabella I's Flemish paintings wait: Van der Weyden, Memling, Bouts, and a lone Botticelli. Most visitors never enter.

Read
View from the Alhambra towers over Granada at dusk, the Albaicin quarter below with its whitewashed rooftops and minarets, the Sierra Nevada mountains looming behind, conveying the isolated mountain kingdom at the heart of the Nasrid civil war Granada succession crisis

The Nasrid Civil War: How Internal Strife Gave Spain Granada

James Walker Updated

Granada didn't fall to military conquest. A Nasrid succession crisis and three-way civil war handed Ferdinand and Isabella the keys to the last Moorish kingdom.

Read
Interior of the Sala de los Abencerrajes Alhambra Granada, a key site in Abencerrajes Granada history, looking up at the octagonal muqarnas honeycomb stalactite ceiling rising above the twelve-sided central marble fountain, shafts of light filtering through high windows, warm stone walls with geometric tile dadoes below carved stucco friezes

Abencerrajes of Granada: the noble clan behind the legend

James Walker Updated

Abencerrajes of Granada: the noble clan who shaped Nasrid court politics for a century and became legend through a massacre story set in the Alhambra.

Read
Convent sweets Granada torno — whitewashed convent wall with wooden revolving hatch, small parcels of dulces conventuales including almendrados and tocinillos wrapped in brown paper, morning light through arched doorway

Convent Sweets in Granada: Buying Dulces Through the Torno

Sarah Mills Updated

Nine convents in Granada sell sweets through the torno, a revolving shelf in the convent wall. Cash only, mornings only, and the greeting ritual is mandatory.

Read
Interior of the Hall of the Two Sisters in the Alhambra Granada at dusk, carved Arabic stucco inscriptions by ibn zamrak alhambra poet visible in the frieze below a muqarnas honeycomb dome, warm amber light

Ibn Zamrak: the poet whose words are carved into the Alhambra

James Walker Updated

Ibn Zamrak (1333–1393), pupil of Ibn al-Khatib, was the Nasrid court poet whose Arabic verses were carved into the Alhambra's Court of the Lions and stucco.

Read
View of the Albaicín hill in Granada at dusk from across the Río Darro, the ancient hill that was Roman Iliberis and Bastetani settlement, roman granada iliberis history

Roman Granada: Iliberis and the Council of Elvira

James Walker Updated

Granada was Roman Iliberis for over 700 years before the Moors arrived. The Council of Elvira, c. 306 AD, was the earliest church council in all of Hispania.

Read
Court of the Lions Alhambra Granada interior view, twelve white marble lion fountain in centre, 124 slender columns of the arcade receding in perspective, morning sidelight on muqarnas capitals

Court of the Lions Alhambra Granada: Decoding the Courtyard

James Walker Updated

Court of the Lions, Alhambra Granada: 124 marble columns, a lion fountain 650 years old, a Quranic paradise built by Muhammad V. What to see and when.

Read
Entrance archway of the Aljibe del Rey medieval cistern in the Albaicín, Granada, Spain, whitewashed walls and narrow cobbled street catching warm late-afternoon light, the albaicin aljibes cisterns granada stone arch in close detail

Albaicín Aljibes: The Medieval Cisterns Under Granada's Streets

James Walker Updated

Twenty-six medieval cisterns survive beneath the Albaicín, built 10th–15th centuries. Fed by the Acequia de Aynadamar from Alfacar into every home and mosque.

Read
Terraced garden of a carmen in the Albaicín, Granada: terracotta path, stone fountain, tall cypresses and flowering vines, with the Alhambra palace filling the opposite hillside — the cármenes Albaicín Granada typology at its most characteristic

Cármenes of the Albaicín: Granada's Walled Garden Houses

James Walker Updated

Granada's cármenes are walled garden villas from Arabic karm (vineyard). Found across the Albaicín since the Nasrid period, two are open free to visitors.

Read
Photorealistic 16th-century scene of the lead books sacromonte granada discovery: hillside caves above the Darro with scholars and Spanish clergy examining circular lead tablets inscribed in Arabic and Latin, warm amber evening light, Alhambra fortifications visible across the valley

The Lead Books of Sacromonte — Granada's Greatest Forgery

James Walker Updated

Lead tablets found in Sacromonte's caves, 1595–1606. Condemned by the Vatican in 1682. The Morisco scholars behind Granada's greatest religious forgery.

Read
Exterior of Sacromonte cave houses in Granada, whitewashed facades cut into the Alhambra-Formation conglomerate hillside above the Darro River valley, with the Alhambra visible in the background

Cave houses of Sacromonte: how Granada carved its hillside

James Walker Updated

Sacromonte's caves were dug from Alhambra conglomerate: Romani history, the 1963 flood evacuation, the €5 ethnographic museum, and the abbey's Santas Cuevas.

Read
Fajalauza ceramics Granada — hand-painted tin-glazed earthenware plates and bowls with cobalt blue pomegranate and bird motifs on white glaze, displayed at an Albaicín workshop

Fajalauza ceramics: Granada's 500-year pottery tradition

James Walker Updated

Fajalauza is Granada's 500-year pottery tradition: cobalt blue, pomegranate motifs, and one Albaicín workshop still hand-painting each piece since 1517.

Read