Granada: The Capilla Real and La Alhambra

With La Alhambra at my back, it was hard not to smile.

The weekend of March 11th was bittersweet in that it included a trip to Granada, yet it also marked the final time that our entire group of CIEE Advanced Liberal Arts students would travel as one whole unit.  Our bus trip three hours eastward through Spain spawned intrigue as our coordinator, Juli, and several tour guides spoke of the awaiting sites.  Granada is a tourist haven due to La Alhambra, one of the most visited sites in all of Europe, as well as the Capilla Real, a mausoleum home to some recognizable corpses.

A typical Albaicín street.

Our first stop, however, was in the lesser known neighborhood of Albaicín.  Like much of Anadalusia, Granada has an important history of Moorish occupation, followed by the Spanish reconquista of formerly Spanish land.  Thus, the neighborhood of Albaicín, which lies on top of a mountain overlooking the center of Granada, is a surviving testament to Moorish culture.  Albaicín is characterized by winding, narrow, medieval streets as well as typical, gated houses called "carmens."  We patrolled the city with our guide, Fernando, a professor of Spanish history and art history at the Universidad de Sevilla, stopping to gaze at former mosques-turned-churches and little town squares.  Finally, we stopped at a convent, run by nuns who do not venture out of the convent for anything but necessities.  Fernando brought us over to a little revolving window with a bell and advised us all to treat ourselves to magdalenas, little muffin-like pastries baked by the nuns to support themselves and their convent.  We all left Albaicín with a sweet taste in our mouths and headed towards the Capilla Real in the heart of Granada.

The Capilla Real is the interment site of several members of the royal family, warranted by the King of Spain and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in the early sixteenth century.  Now, the Capilla Real holds the remains of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, or the "reyes católicos" (Catholic monarchs).  While most Americans laud this royal couple as the pair who chartered Christopher Columbus' famous journey to discover America, they are also notable for their furthering of the Spanish reconquista and their institution of the Spanish Inquisition, which ousted thousands of Jews and Moors and forced many others to convert to Christianity.  Adjacent to the sarcophagus of the reyes católicos is the shared sarcophagus of King Philip I of Spain and his wife, Queen Joanna.  Queen Joanna was the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella and she is most remembered in Spanish lore as Juana la Loca (Joanna the Mad) because, after the death of her womanizing husband Philip (also known as Philip the Handsome), she presumably galavanted around in her royal carriage with her husband's cadaver.  Inside the actual Capilla, the ornamentation and minute details of the two large, sculpted sarcophagi was awe-inspiring.  Below ground level is a little passageway that allows everyone to peer in at the actual coffins containing the bodies of the Spanish royalty.  The sarcophagi are turned towards the Retablo Mayor, an enormous, gilded altar depicting the trials and tribulations of the two Saint Johns, Saint John the Baptist and Saint John the Evangelist.  The altar shows the beheading of John the Baptist in gruesome detail, juxtaposed with the failed attempt of burning John the Evangelist alive.  Kneeling on either side of the altar, life-size sculptures of Ferdinand and Isabella attest to the importance of Christianity in Spain's history.  The Capilla Real stands next to the gorgeous Granada Cathedral and is an incredible site.

The sarcophagi of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella (front) and King Philip I and Queen Joanna (back) sit in front of the Capilla Real's Retablo Mayor.

The Palace of Charles V.

The next day, our crew awoke early to visit La Alhambra.  La Alhambra, Arabic for "red fortress" is a massive palace complex built in the mid-fourteenth century by the Moors who reigned over Granada.  Inside the fortified walls are several beautiful structures including the Generalife, the Moorish royal palace and the Palace of Charles V.  We first explored the Generalife, the summer palace and home to the Moorish emirs.  The Generalife showcases the unique Moorish architecture, featuring columns and intricate ceramic designs on each wall.  Surrounded by this architecture are gorgeous, manicured gardens with erupting fountains and long, rectangular water basins.  Once we browsed all of the gardens and rooms of the Generalife, we moved on to the royal complex of the Moorish emirs.  This complex featured similar designs in larger proportions.  One particularly fascinating room was the Hall of the Ambassadors, the very spot where the emir would sit on his throne and hold court.  The Hall has large windows that overlook the entire city and has a tiled design painted black, white, green, yellow and blue, the five colors of Muslim art meant to represent death, innocence, Allah, sun and water, respectively.  We walked through the massive patios and courts before stopping at our final destination, the Palace of Charles V.  The Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain built his palace within the walls of La Alhambra in the sixteenth century.  The Palace is a large, square building, but, on the inside, an enormous rounded patio of pillars creates great acoustics and resonance.  The confluence of so many royal structures and aesthetic masterpieces in the same complex is utterly jaw-dropping.  Granada is an unbelievable city, full of character and history, and the images of La Alhambra resting on top of its mountainous hammock will forever be etched in my memory.