A coffee in Granada, Andalucia takes away the chill. From the coffee bar you look up and see the snow-capped Sierra Nevada. You feel the cold on your face in the morning breeze and step into a bar near the Cathedral for the warmth.
Just to be in Granada is to feel echoes and resonances from the past. You do not go to Granada to study, but to open your heart and mind to the whispering voices of the past.
The great poet Lorca was murdered in Granada. His spirit seems to inhabit the lanes and alleyways: passion, desire, beauty and death. Sitting quietly now with a coffee, looking at the imposing Cathedral façade I am overwhelmed by the knowledge that Lorca was here.
This is where Columbus came in 1492 to present his petition to Ferdinand and Isabella. And the Gran Capitán, Ferdinand’s brilliant, arrogant general who made Spanish arms invincible in Itlay was here. The beauty, pomp and splendour of the monuments and architecture both hide and reveal these historical presences.
The streets of the town are lively with their ghosts, but to feel their presence more deeply you have to go to the Alhambra. It is a dream palace raised over a gorge, with galleries and arcades that lead you to think of paradise. You cannot help but meditate on what the towering cypress trees in the Generalife gardens have seen.
Opposite the Alhambra is the Albaicín, the Moorish quarter. The winding alleyways between low houses look across at the fortress’s picturesque but bleak exterior. I make my way to the top and sit on a bench, still thinking about Lorca.
His gypsy spirit squashed by Franco is like a parable or metaphor. As though he were the last sigh of the last Caliph of Granada, Boabdil, who on finally leaving Al-Andalus broke into tears.
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