An Anachronist Abroad--Granada

by Dona Anabel Ravaya de Guzman

After leaving the Alhambra, my aunt and I took a public carriage to the
bottom of the mountain, past the Gate of the Pomegranates, into the
heart of the city, passing at one point, the Rio Darro, one of the two
rivers that run through Granada.  "This is a river?"  I thought.  "Give
me a running start and I can almost jump this creek." But I kept this
to myself.  Of course the Moors and Berbers would be in wonder of
seeing so much water, for Spain has many small rivers, but only the
Guadalquivir can carry ships up as far as Sevilla, and even the
Guadalquivir is not so very wide.

The carriage left us in the heart of the city, and my aunt and I walked
to the Catedral and the Capilla Real, the royal chapel where the
Catholic Monarchs and one of their daughters and sons-in-law are
buried.  It is here that I saw the crown and scepter of Isabel, the
sword of Fernando used to knight Cristobal Colon, the many paintings
the queen collected, the royal banner used when the city was won from
the Moors.

The seamstresses of my acquaintance would have loved to see the painted
wooden carvings of the king and queen, and especially the marble
effigies of Fernando, Isabel, Juana and Felipe at rest over the
sepulchres at the chapel's center.  Perhaps they saw renderings, since
the details I saw at Timothy and Gabrielle's coronation were just as
exquisite.  The effect that the Catholic Monarchs and their children
had on the history of this land, the bad and the good, is still a
powerful draw.  The line of people of all walks of life filing down
into the lower level of the sepulchre to see the four lead coffins was
considerable, the wait about 15 minutes for a glimpse of a few seconds
into the solemn chamber.

The rest of the Catedral, begun in the Renaissance and ended in the
Baroque era, is much like the others I had seen.  One small detail of
note, however.  The southern portion of Spain is prone to earthquakes.
At one of the side altars I saw a crack in one of the upper corners of
a wooden carving.  At the Alhambra, the delicate plaster and marble
stonework of the inner courtyards has thus far survived intact.

We strolled the heart of the town for a short while longer and saw a
monument commemorating the 400th anniversary of Colon's discovery of
the New World.  This one is a detailed rendering, in lead, I think, of
La Reina Isabel seated upon her throne, offering to pawn her precious
jewels to a kneeling Cristobal Colon to finance his journey west.

We then saw La Cartuja, a Carthusian monastery begun in 1516.  The
twisted multicolored marble columns, the gold and silver, the
tortoise-shell, the ivory, the   exquisite sacristy, have given this
place the reputation as the Christian answer to the Alhambra.  The room
next to the sacristy, where the monks actually ate, was by comparison
quite empty, save for a long wooden table and benches, and some simple
illuminations on the walls depicting the martyrdom of some of the
brethren.  The explanation was quickly offered:  The monks themselves
lived in poverty (and this was a vegetarian order), but the actual
church was God's house, and so had to be richly appointed.

We later explored the Sacromonte, the gypsy quarter, with a group from
the inn where we stayed.  This, I was told, was the safest way to see
the Sacromonte, except for the truly adventurous, and even then one
should not carry valuables nor more cash than one can afford to lose.
This hill is dotted with prickly-pear cacti and riddled with caves,
where many of the gypsies live.  Some have made their homes into
taverns, where colorful rugs adorn the floors and copper utensils hang
from the ceilings.  One such tavern treated us all to a glass of
Sangria.  We then left for the Albaicin in the carriage our inn
provided and passed a "donkey-taxi" that is often used by the tourists
to go from the bottom to the top of the hills along the narrower
streets.  I looked at my aunt, who immediately said, "No, don't even
think about it."  We had no time, in any case.

Our carriage left us in one plaza, and our guide took us on foot up
even narrower streets to the Mirador de San Nicolas, near the top of
the Albaicin.  From this lookout, we saw the walls and the towers of
the Alhambra and the Generalife across the small Darro river valley,
and the entire city below just as the sun had set and the lights of the
city had come to life.  This is a grand Andalusian version of our
Mullhullen Drive in the West; I saw one pair of young people, perhaps
college students, on one of the benches in the park of the Mirador,
looking rather annoyed and waiting for us to leave.

The alleys around the cathedral, once the silk market of the Moors, now
house shops  from where I purchased the last of the gifts for my
friends back home, and a fine silver ring for my aunt's birthday.  I
treated her to dinner at the restaurant of the inn where we stayed, and
we toasted with our cava the fine people of this city, and the many
wonderful things we had seen.

The long caravan back to Madrid the next day took us through
spectacular, craggy mountain ranges and across one high bridge over the
Guadalquivir or one of it is tributaries.  It was a long, slow, but
smoother and more restful ride.  I watched the sun set outside my
window.  Once in Madrid, back at our inn there, the Hotel Carlos V, I
heard the plaintive tune of a gaita, a Spanish "soprano bagpipe" being
played by a street musician near our window.  I thought it a fitting
postlude to our journey, and am resolved to return to this country.

Here ends the chronicle of Dona Ana Ravaya de Guzman.


Some Errata to this Journal

A closer look at the old arms of the united kingdoms of Castilla and
Aragon of the Catholic monarchs shows that the portion representing
Aragon sisted of pale bars and eagles, quartered, I think.  I'm still
not certain what the Navarra charge is, though it does resemble a
ship's wheel from a distance.

Another of  the many things I learned on my journey: one is not to
implicitly trust tour guides and tourist pamphlets, as they will often
dispense with an accurate rendering of history if a good story can be
told.  Upon my return home I resumed my readings and studies of the
history of my ancestors, only to find out the following:

The actual story of the slaughter of the Abencerrages is not nearly as
romantic as the tour guides of the Alhambra would have one believe, and
may not have taken place in that salon at all.  The pamphlets say one
thing, the historical chronicles say this:

Boabdil's father, then King Hasan, had many wives and concubines.  His
favorite was the Sultana Zoroya, Star of the Morning, for her radiant
appearance.  (She had once been a blond, blue-eyed Christian slave
named Isabel de Solis, who had caught the Sultan's eye.)  She gave
Hasan his son, Boabdil, whom Hasan named as his successor.  As the boy
grew older, his father saw that while he inherited his mother's looks,
he had neither her spiritedness nor his father's commanding presence or
drive, so he was growing more reluctant to leave the throne to the son
of his favorite.

In his middle age, King Hasan became infatuated with a new paramour, a
Greek slave named Ayesha, whom he soon married.  Zoroya was approaching
middle age, and worried that the Sultan might disinherit her son in
favor of Ayesha's future children.  The Sultana asked for the aid of a
powerful clan, the Zegries, who took arms against the backers of
Ayesha, the equally powerful Abencerrages.  These rival clans were the
"Montagues and Capulets" of that time, and needed little excuse to
spill blood on the streets of Granada.

This feud was one of many that took place at a time when the Christians
were drawing ever closer to Granada.  It was also this feud which would
pit Boabdil against his father and hasten the downfall of the Moors.
Fernando had taken advantage of these feuds and rivalries to help bring
about the end of the Reconquista as well, and it was this consummate
politician's abilities which helped inspire Machiavelli to write The
Prince.  Of course, the story of an assignation between the Sultana
Zoroya and a member of the Abencerrages, and a subsequent beheading of
many of the clan, is more luridly appealing.  Historians and bards must
always be careful to pass on as much of the truth as possible, however
tempted one may be to pass on the better story.  Of course, the better
story can be told, as long as all are made aware that it is only "a
better tale."  Or so is this bard's opinion


from the June 1998 Seahorse