Tales of the Alhambra

My mother was an inveterate traveler, and since she was also a Spanish teacher, her favorite country to travel in was Spain. She often traveled with one or more of her women friends, and especially loved staying in the paradors, inns that are operated by the Spanish government, often in very scenic historic buildings.

As she got older it came to a point when she realized that she didn’t have many trips left in her, and she decided that she wanted to make one last trip to Spain with her three daughters. For about a year we all enjoyed planning where we would go, and we each got to fulfill our one fondest wish. Since I had been studying Islamic geometric design and symmetry patterns for a number of years the top place on my wish list was the Alhambra complex in Granada. This also happened to be the location of my mother’s favorite of all the paradors.

We planned a three-week trip that took us on a wide circuit of the country, from the Basque region in the north, down to Madrid and Toledo, continuing to Sevilla, Cordoba and Granada, and finally ending up in Barcelona in in the east. I was excited to visit all of these places, but most of all I couldn’t wait to get to the Alhambra. Although it was a significant splurge, my mother gifted two nights in the Alhambra parador to all of us for that year’s birthday present.

Looking at Toledo from across the Rio Tajo

A few months before we were scheduled to leave on our trip my mother suffered a medical incident that meant that her traveling days were over. She insisted that we carry on with our trip nonetheless, and said that she would enjoy it just as much vicariously through our experiences as if she were there herself.

We decided that since our mother wasn’t able to be there with us we would write her a postcard every day and write a poem about what we had done. Since her name was Jane, conveniently rhyming with Spain, it made the project particularly fun, and something that we had a great time doing every evening. Every now and then we even wrote our poem of the day in Spanish.

We had a rental car for most of our journey and became fairly comfortable with following the road signs and asking directions when we needed to. The day finally came when we drove into Granada and started following the signs to the Alhambra. As we wound our way through the town and up a fairly steep hill we eventually were stopped at a guard booth. It turned out that the only vehicles that were allowed beyond that point and into the grounds of the Alhambra were tour buses and guests of the parador.

We passed through the stone archway that marked the entry to the Alhambra and found our way to the building that housed the parador. Built in the 14th century, the stone building was originally part of a mosque complex and then later rebuilt and used as a Franciscan convent. It was laid out in the classic shape of a rectangle with an open courtyard in the center, a tower on one end and a third story ‘penthouse’ on another.

After checking in at the reception desk a concierge grabbed our bags and led us to our room. First we passed through the reception area and into an open space with a double staircase leading up to a landing floor that had about a dozen rooms going around its perimeter. Then we went up a single staircase that led up to a smaller floor with just three or four rooms. Then the concierge led us up a small set of stairs to one last single room. That room plus the ‘penthouse’ tower above it was all for us!

There were two beds on the main floor and one more up in the crow’s nest room, which my younger sister, Dee Dee, claimed. Across the beds downstairs were laid three bathrobes and three sets of slippers with the Parador ‘P’ and crown logo embroidered on them. My older sister, Patty, who we often referred to as ‘Princess Patty’ went wild, convinced they had been specially made for her. A maid was in the room at that time and we asked her if it would be possible to buy them. With a wink and a whisper she said “Just take them - I won’t tell anybody”.

Next we turned to checking out the bathroom, a beautiful spacious space with a shower large enough that we could have all showered together if we had wanted to. It was enclosed entirely in glass, and the front had a quote from “Tales of the Alhambra” sandblasted into it written in Spanish. We worked our way through translating the quote, and to paraphrase, it said, “Once upon a time in a faraway land there were three princesses who lived in a tower”.

We were beside ourselves at this point, feeling sure that we were the three princesses in the tower. And indeed we were for the next couple days. Because the parador was within the walls of the Alhambra complex we had day and night access to the grounds and the gardens. And as it happened, our second night staying there would be under a full moon.

We spent our first afternoon and evening exploring the complex snd enjoying the perfect late September weather.

The next morning we had to get up bright and early because we still had to observe our timed entry to have access to all the buildings of the Alhambra. What a feast for the eyes! I was in heaven seeing the amazing work that had been done by the Moorish artisans in the past centuries. Every imaginable surface was covered with mind boggling designs.

I thought of M.C. Escher, who had the opportunity to live at the Alhambra in the 1920’s and 30’s. Filling page after page of his sketchbooks with studies of the patterns, he was able to decipher the underlying grids and the rules that led to all of the designs. He then figured out how to systematically alter the geometric grids to create his magically interlocking birds and fish, angels and demons.

I could have spent months there myself, immersed in the endless variety and creativity that we saw, but we had to be content with the time that we had.

Besides being beautiful buildings in stunning settings, each of the paradors has an exceptional restaurant on the grounds, and we had had opportunities to try several of them out as we traveled throughout the country. At the Alhambra parador the restaurant was in the open air courtyard within its walls.

We decided to make this our celebratory joint birthday dinner under the full moon. With a pitcher of sangria we toasted our mother who made all this possible for us as we enjoyed one delicious dish after another.

That night as we sat down to write our postcard to our mother we were inspired to write not just a poem, but to write it in Spanish and set it to music. Some of you may remember a song from the 60’s by Allen Sherman that was set in Camp Granada, itself taken from the Ponchielli opera “La Giaconda”. You can find this on youtube if you look up “Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh”. Our altered lyrics went like this -

Buenos dias, nuestra mama

Aqui estamos en Granada

Entre todos paradores

Este en Alhambra es mejores

Por nuestros cumpleaños

Con sangria celebramos

De la luz de luna llena

Muchas gracias a señora Jane-ah!

The next morning we went down to the reception desk to reluctantly check out of our room. The staff was gathered behind the desk and we told them about how our mother had planned our visit to the parador but was unable to come with us. None of us is a decent singer, but we sang an impromptu rendition of our song to them. The manager had his hand over his heart and exclaimed, “Su madre! La luna!” He ran back into the office and came out with a folio of illustrations from “The Tales of the Alhambra” and asked us to bring them back home to our mother.

Naturally we had lots of stories to tell when we got back home, and we put together an album with all of the poems we had written and souvenirs for our mother that Christmas. We all agreed that our magical Arabian nights at the Alhambra will remain one of our most beloved memories. Salud!