Alcázar Genil

South of the city, on the plain where the River Genil flows toward Cordoba and the Guadalquivir, stand two unique Moorish monuments which usually go unnoticed, not for their lack of interest, which is considerable, but because they have been literally swamped by the southward thrust of Granada's urban sprawl, hemmed in by unsightly apartment blocks on all sides.  Another reason is that they have both been disfigured by the Moor's successors, the first one (below) because it was over-restored, to the point of looking brand-new, at least on the outside, and the other (further down) because it was turned into a Christian church and decorated with the usual paraphernalia.  But the damage wrought to Alcázar Genil was by far the most disastrous, since one expects old mosques to be turned into new churches, this having been the rule down through history (and vice versa).

Only a small part of the original, 13th century country retreat has survived.  Here, the rulers of the Alhambra gave open-air receptions for their visitors, and also for foreign Ambassadors, whether they came from North Africa or from Christian lands.  Aixa, the mother of Boabdil, last Sultan of Granada, lived here for a time also.  There was a great pond where mock naval battles were staged, with real boats and sailors clashing on the water, channelled in from the nearby Genil River, to the delight of the populace.

This is the back of the palace, with some of those housing developments we are so fond of down here...

The interior however has been preserved as it was, with the same mocárabes, or plaster stucco encrustations in the form of stalactites, that you see in the Nasrid Palaces of the Alhambra.

My sidekicks Wijjie and Valentino...  Just to show you how un-visited the place is, we were able to walk straight in the open door where there was no guard on hand to keep out the dog!

 

 

 

 

Ermita de San Sebastián

A short walk upstream along the esplanade called Paseo del Violón, and upstream along the left bank of the River Genil, we come to a remarkable little building, the "Hermitage of  Saint Sebastian".  It was built by the Moors as a "morabito", which meant precisely a place where a Muslim hermit lived, who like the Christian ones would be visited by people in search of his blessing, of cures for their illnesses and so on. 

 

The belltower of course was added by the Christians, but the rest is pretty much as the Moors left it. 

 

It is the only surviving building of its kind in Spain, so it deserved better treatment than it got, as you can see above.  Not only were property developers back in the unregulated 70's allowed to raise their apartment blocks next to it, but they even tried to bulldoze it out of existence to make way for one more architectural horror.  They only failed because of a last-minute demonstration by defenders of Granada's heritage (there are more of them around today, mercifully). 

The hermitage stands in a hole, creating the unfortunate impression that it is about to sink out of sight altogether.  This is because the level of the land was raised when the Genil was embanked to prevent flooding.  Since the hermitage once stood on a strand which sloped down to the water's edge, a space had to be made for it on the new esplanade.

 

The hermitage was the scene of a great moment in Spanish history, when, after his defeat, the last Sultan of Granada rode down from the Alhambra to greet the Christian monarchs, Isabel and Fernando, to offically surrender the city to them.

A much-reproduced 19th century painting shows the momentous encounter on the field below the Alhambra, with Boabdil on the left, symbolically shown in shadow, and the proud King and Queen on their horses and gleaming in the winter sunlight (it was the 2nd of January, 1942) about to receive the proferred key to the Alhambra.  Actually the three of them were old friends, since Boabdil, while at war with his own uncle El Zagal, took refuge in the Christian court for some months, before being released because the Christian cynically thought that it would be better to have him on the throne, since he would be easier to negotiate the surrender with.  Needless to say, they got the terms they sought, but Boabdil was granted extensive rewards too...

 

This shot taken from a place on the esplanade between the Hermitage and the monumental staircase of Granada's conference center, the Palacio de Congresos, seems to place the surrender scene just where the painter depicted it, with theTorre de la Vela in the same spot.

The most precious detail is the patterned dome inside, with Christian symbols all about because it is still a popular church where many people from the neighbourhood come to hear Sunday Mass.

The center of the ceiling, with its bas-relief design converging on a many-pointed star, a typically Moorish motif, and still miraculously intact after eight centuries!

 

 

 

Click here to read related excerpts from the book, Granada, City of My Dreams

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