5 hours ago
1
I’m standing in the hallway of one of Spain’s most visited attractions, curious as to why there’s a plaque dedicated to an American. For eight centuries, the UNESCO World Heritage fortress of the Alhambra has seen kings and peasants, conquerors and invaders, diplomats and noblemen come and go, as dynasties and empires rose and fell.
From the streets of Granada below, the mighty fortress’ honey-hued facade looks like a child’s sandcastle, the turrets shaped by bucket and spade. Inside, however, the almost 800-year-old palace is spellbinding. Tiles in vibrant geometric patterns adorn the walls, and ornate calligraphy plasterwork draws the eyes upwards and the vaulted ceiling drips with a honeycombed web of ceramic stalactites. In one alcove, the last surviving shards of centuries-old stained-glass stubbornly refuse to be shaken loose, projecting a candy-coloured paintbox dancing across the marble floors.
Built by the Nasrid Dynasty, beginning in the 13th century, the Alhambra is considered one of the finest examples of Islamic architecture standing today. After centuries of conflict and natural disasters, it’s remarkable that only one person – an 18th-century American diplomat, lawyer and scholar named Washington Irving – is credited on these walls and in English, too. I can’t help but be intrigued.
Irving was also a romantic, a storyteller with a keen eye for adventure, and with the means to do so. He penned the classic Rip Van Winkle and gave us the tale of the headless horseman in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, but it is his 1832 travel memoir, Tales of the Alhambra, that has had the most enduring impact here.
Sign up for the Traveller Deals newsletter
Get exclusive travel deals delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up now.
“Such is the Alhambra,” Irving wrote during his three-month stay in the palace, “a Muslim pile in the midst of a Christian land, an Oriental palace amid the Gothic edifices of the West, an elegant memento of a brave, intelligent and graceful people who conquered, ruled and passed away.”
Whimsical and descriptive, his memoir placed the Alhambra firmly on the map for his contemporaries on their Grand Tours of Europe. What was a trickle of intrepid travellers by the late 1800s has become a flood; Alhambra attracts more than 2 million visitors annually and my small group is among them.
We are in Granada on the first stop of our seven-day Al Andalus train journey, a luxury train tour through Andalusia, travelling in refurbished 1930s-era carriages, saloons and compartments once used by royalty.
With a critical eye and wicked sense of humour, our guide brings the Alhambra to life for us, not least by likening Charles V’s royal insignia set over the Islamic plasterwork to “a bumper sticker on a fine car”. However, it’s her remarks about Irving that pique my interest.
“Some people argue Irving is the reason the Alhambra is so popular today,” she says, standing before his plaque. “Maybe without the book it would just [have] been foundations today. Without him, this place might be in ruin.”
Standing shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of other tourists, I am tempted to think he might have brought a different sort of “ruin” to this tourist attraction.
When we leave, I buy a copy of Tales from the gift shop. Curled up in my train compartment that afternoon, I chuckle as Irving grumbles about how the walls of the Alhambra were “scrawled over with the insignificant names of aspiring travellers”.
It’s hard not to warm to his prose, and I’m drawn to the romantic ideal he paints of the palace. Of course, Irving doesn’t always get it right. While he is often credited with the popularity (and in turn, preservation) of the Alhambra, in the book, he wrongly credits its survival to the French, who occupied the fortress between 1810 and 1812.
In reality, a footnote in my copy of Tales reveals Napoleon’s troops rigged the fortress with explosives during their retreat. While Irving’s book certainly fires the imagination, it’s a group of unsung Spanish soldiers who cut the fuse, saving the Alhambra from total destruction.
So, is Irving worthy of a plaque? In my opinion, absolutely. His book is a love letter not just to the Alhambra but to Spain, a literary beacon still drawing travellers after centuries. But his work is just one chapter in Alhambra’s story, a place that has to be seen to be believed, a place so beguiling, I can’t wait to return.
Al Andalus Train tours Andalusia between April and October. The seven-day, six-night journey, available between Seville and Madrid, includes all meals, guided entries to monuments and entertainment. From €6600 ($10,890) a person for a Grand Class Room. See eltrenalandalus.com
The writer travelled as a guest of Al Andalus Train and Tourism Espana.
