Before the surroundings of the Alhambra were full of tourists, it was full of travelers. Romantics, specifically. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Granada had very little to do with what we know today. It was precisely the visit of these travelers that put it back in vogue and that, through the interest they conveyed in the Arab legacy and its mystery, it revalued a city that was by no means going through its greatest moment of splendor.
One of the most remembered is, without a doubt, Washington Irving. especially for their ‘Tales of the Alhambra’, written in 1829 during his stay in the city and that they put the name of the Nasrid fortress in bookstores throughout the West. The North American writer was fascinated by the ancestral culture of the Granada capital and, according to his own texts, he reluctantly left what was his second visit to it.
In the first, he left his traces throughout a good part of the province, from Loja to Santa Fe. The traces have finally remained as Heritage for the people of Granada in the 21st centurywho can travel, either through routes or visits to specific enclaves, the path of a referential writer to understand Granada and the vision he left of it to the world.
Alhambra
Night image of the Partal in the Alhambra
The Alhambra is the quintessential Irvingnian place. On his second visit to Granada, Irving decided to stay in the city. He did it first Inn of the Sword, in Alhóndiga street in the capital, but after a week the traveler had decided that he wanted to spend the nights in the Alhambra itself.
He was traveling with his friend the Prince of Dolgorouki, Russian ambassador to Spain at that time and known, in the end, for being the one who created the Alhambra signature book in order to end graffiti.
The monument by then was abandoned and in terrible condition, but it was difficult to access at certain times. After taking some steps, both he and the Russian prince obtained authorization to stay there and, above all, spend the nights, the most magical and interesting moment for a romantic like him.
That first room was in the Charles V Palace, but it took a short time to change lodging. A few weeks later, one night while he was browsing among the palaces, he found some locked rooms that he opened by forcing the door. It was about the calls Halls of Fruitssome rooms that Carlos V had built around the Muslim palaces after his famous visit to Granada in 1526, on his honeymoon.
Views from the room where Washington Irving stayed in the Alhambra
Irving’s stay was entertaining for him and, apart from writing and taking notes, as he narrates in a letter to his friend Dolgorouki, he had breakfast “in the style of the Nasrid kings” in the Court of the Lions. In addition to this place, the Hall of Ambassadors was another of the favorite places to have breakfast and lunch.
Among his hobbies, he continued in his correspondence, was climbing to the top of the Comares Tower and from up there, with his binoculars, meticulously observe the day-to-day life of the city and the walk of the people of Granada through the streets.
Such was the significance after those weeks that, already consolidated as a journalist, Hispanic scholar and diplomat, he wrote articles in which he explained the need to recover it and to give it the place in the history of Granada and of Humanity that corresponded to it.
Image of the Washington irving Hotel in the Alhambra
In the heart of the Alhambra forest is also the Hotel Washington Irving. 63 rooms have room in this five star hotel, inspired by the life and work of the author of the ‘Tales of the Alhambra’. Irving himself came to stay for a few days, in 1829, in the rooms of this building located opposite the Gate of the Seven Floors.
The Alhambra would not be the same today without those writings or, of course, the Tales of the Alhambra. For this reason, after the Puerta de las Granadas, at the entrance to the Alhambra, the slope that is undertaken along the path to the left, the one that leads to the Puerta de la Justicia, has a statue of Irving himself sculpted in bronze. It was made in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of his death and his posture, how could it be otherwise, is that of the posed with his notebook and the predisposition of the attentive traveler who was in the Nasrid palaces.
Ruta Washington Irving
Image of Loja, a town in Granada belonging to the Washington Irving route
Although Irving’s best known and most loved place in Granada was undoubtedly the Alhambra, he also traveled through the province on his first trip, in 1928. There is currently a ruta Washington Irvingwhich crosses all of Andalusia, just as he did, from Seville to Granada.
The route unites the capitals of the two traditional Andalusias, the Baja and the Alta; two plains, the countryside and the plain, separated by a suggestive and varied landscape. The arrival in Granada takes place in Loja, of which Irving pointed out that “it is wild and picturesque”. He described the traveler that “above the city everything is wild and barren, while below it thrives the richest vegetation and the freshest verdure that can be imagined.”
From Loja, around the valley where the riverbed of the Genil descends, we undertake, passing through Huétor Tájar and Moraleda de Zafayonathe road to the Alhama de Granada.
The next stop is at Montefrio, one of the most beautiful towns in Andalusia according to National Geographic year after year, due to its incomparable views. Above its characteristic rock, crowning it, awaits the church of the Villa.
Image of Montefrío, a town in Granada belonging to the Washington Irving route
From there, take the path to Íllora and then towards Fuente Vaqueros, birthplace of Federico García Lorca and where you can visit his house-museum. A few kilometers from it is another of the essential stops, also for Irving as a student of the historical character of Christopher Columbuswhich is Santa Fe, where the Capitulations were signed.
In them, the Catholic Kings on April 17, 1492 in this same town, already on the outskirts of Granada, the agreements reached with Columbus regarding his planned expedition by sea to the west are collected. This is the penultimate stop, being the end of the trip in the province, of course, the capital of Granada, where you must proceed to visit the Alhambreño monument and its surroundings.
