Alhambra, Granada

The last jewel of al-Andalus

The Alhambra was the seat of the Nasrid dynasty, the last Muslim state in the Iberian Peninsula. Most of its famous palaces date from the fourteenth century, under the sultans Yusuf I and Muhammad V.

Its name comes from the Arabic al-Hamra, "the red one," for the colour of its rammed-earth walls glowing at sunset above the city.

Architecture of water and light

The Alhambra is a masterpiece of surface and shadow. Slender columns carry horseshoe arches; vaults of muqarnas hang like frozen honeycomb; every wall is covered in carved stucco, glazed tile and inscribed poetry.

And water is everywhere (still pools that double the architecture in reflection, channels that murmur through the courts, and the famous fountain of the Court of the Lions), cooling the air and turning the palace into a kind of earthly paradise garden.

1492 and after

In 1492 Granada fell to the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, ending nearly eight hundred years of Muslim rule in Spain.

The Alhambra survived, partly because its conquerors prized its beauty. After centuries of neglect it was "rediscovered" by Romantic travellers in the nineteenth century; the American writer Washington Irving lived in its rooms and made it famous in the English-speaking world; and it is now one of the most visited monuments on Earth.