Alhambra Alta - the High Alhambra

 

We enter the Alhambra from the Generalife Gardens by the bridge called Puente Nuevo. However, the original route of access, in Moorish times, between the Alhambra and the Generalife went through the Puerta del Hierro, the Iron Gate, and made it necessary to cross the ravine on foot. When the Alhambra obtained national monument status in 1870, this route was replaced, for the comfort of the visitors, by the "new bridge".

 

 

Parallel to the bridge runs the much more ancient and now disused aqueduct of the Alhambra. In the 13th century, the founding Sultan, Alhamar, built an acequia or water channel along the slopes of the River Darro, drawing its water miles upstream to supply first the Generalife and then the Alhambra Palace. Here, the channel spanned the ravine to enter the Alhambra. The ruins of the Torre del Agua - Water Tower - destroyed by the French troops at the end of the War of Independence, looms in the background.

We can still see a segment of the Acequia Real, the "Royal Channel", inside the palace walls, where it was broken to make way for the footpath leading from the bridge down to the Nasrid Palaces.

As we walk down the footpath from the bridge, we see on our left a gate in the wall called Puerta de los Siete Suelos - the Gate of the Seven Floors, or Levels.   It is so called because it was originally protected by a larger external gate, similar to the Puerta de la Justicia, which had seven "steps". 

The last Sultan of Granada, Boabdil, used this gate when he rode out to present his surrender to the Catholic Monarchs in the winter of 1491, and one of the conditions he demanded - and one of the very few which the Monarchs were to honour - was that this gate be sealed up forever, after the shameful day.

 

The city of the Alhambra - medina al-Hamrat - was excavated in the 19th century, revealing the foundations of luxury homes, some of which had their own baths.

Further down the hill are the remains of the palace of the rebellious Abencerraje family, whose male members were massacred by Sultan Muley Hassen.

Monastery of San Francisco

Although the current name of this former monastery is the Parador de San Francisco, the part that interests us is not the luxury hotel, but the remains, embedded in its interior, of the orginal Moorish and Christian constructions, and which make it one of the most extraordinary buildings of Granada.

Under the Nasrids, this was the site of a palace, with its own mirhab or prayer room. When the Catholic Monarchs were laying seige to Granada, Queen Isabella promised that, after the victory, she would build a shrine in the Alhambra to her beloved Saint Francis. The monastery was installed in the expropriated Moorish palace, and when the Monarchs died, over the following two decades, they were buried here, in the monastery church, awaiting the completion of the Royal Chapel in the city below.

 

 

In the 18th century, the old Moorish building was rebuilt in the classical style, but because the Catholic Monarchs had been buried in an alcove of the old palace, this part of the building was left intact, in their memory.

 

 

In our times, a marble plaque was laid in the place where Isabel and Ferdinand were temporarily buried, in front of the altar of the church.

 

The transferral of their bones to the final resting place, down the Cuesta de Gomerez and through Plaza Nueva, is said to have been the grandest ceremony the city has ever seen. The funeral cortège even included - incongruously - a delegation of Granada's moriscos, dressed in their traditional costumes.

 

The monastery, and most of the Spanish Church's enormous property, was expropriated by the State in 1835. The monks were driven away and the building was used as a tenement house and, finally, a donkey stable, until it fell into ruins (as shown in this old photo). It was saved from demolition by a group of local intellectuals, in the early 20th century, and became a retirement home for artists.

The roof of the old church had collapsed, but it was decided to leave the nave uncovered, creating the curiously-shaped courtyard we discover as we enter from the hotel lobby. Next to this "false" patio, we step into what was once the inner garden of the Moorish palace, and which the monks used as their cloister, rebuilding it in the classical style in the 18th century. The hotel keeps its roof covered with transparent material, so that it is no longer open to the sky.

 

The only trace of the original garden is the water channel which crosses the floor, filling a rectangular pond. This courtyard was similar to the "patio de la acequia" of the Generalife, but on a much smaller scale.

Church of Santa María de la Alhambra

This large, and not very beautiful, church was built on the site of the Alhambra's Great Mosque, which explains why it stands next to the palace baths. Another poignant memory of the past is the marble pillar which stands in front of the church, and which bears a plaque telling the story of two monks who entered the Moorish kingdom to preach their faith to the heretics. They were beheaded in this place by the Sultan Mohammed V, the ruler who created the lovely Courtyard of Lions.

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