Some books follow me. I read them again and again, I bring them with me, I read parts and pages, or I just know they are there, somewhere in my shelves. A Year in the World by Frances Mayes is one of them. With Frances I have travelled all over Europe, mostly from my armchair, but also from time to time with the book in my backpack. Through Frances I learned about Federico Garcia Lorca, and reading her book, I armchair walked to Granada and through La Alhambra for the first time. Years before I actually came here myself.
When I came to La Alhambra last week, I brought people with me, in my mind and heart - Frances Mayes, Lorca, Robert Irwin.... Through their words they had given me an image of the place. Created images are not like the real thing though........the atmosphere, the architecture, the people, the gardens, the scents, the heath, the noises, the water......and of course the colours. Now I met it all, in real life.
Outside the gates we were met by our guide, Spanish, still she spoke a very charming Norwegian. She has lived in Norway a winter as an exchange student, some 20+ years ago. Vividly, fascinatingy, she took us through La Alhambra, for three hours leading us through centuries of history.
As the guide tells us about the Moors, Isabella and Fernando, the Nasrids.......I hear Frances Mayes' words; As we learn about the Alhambra and gardens, what fascinates me most is how art was so closely connected to living. Through the decorative - interior design and landscape design - the entire panoply of Moorish art is displayed....
....We walk as they lived, with the sound of water, soothing to us and to the ears of desert people....
Robert Irwin wrote The Alhambra, first published in 2004. He compares Alhambra to an Arabian fairy tale palace, and quotes The Tale of the King's Son and the She-Ghoul from The Arabian Nights. He continue to talk about The Alhambra looking like a Hollywood version of an oriental palace.....and, indeed, both the Court of the Myrtles and the Court of the Lions have been used as sets in Ray Harryhausen's Sinbad films.
I've read somewhere that there are about 6000 tourists waking through La Alhambra on an average day. Somehow it never felt cramped, or too busy during our walk. May be because all I could concentrate on were the stories the guide told, and the atmosphere of the place itself. It was easy to lock out everything else.
Let us continue with Frances Mayes: ......cool off in the Courtyard of Myrtles, beside a long pool and low stone basin of gurglin water. These fountains and courtyards invite strolling, reading Rumi, sipping jasmine tea. They also bounce their light into the surrounding rooms, glazing the tiles and mottling the walls with wavering shadows. For those who lived their daily lives here, the light, the temperature, even their skin was changed by the wet-watercolor reflections from the fountains and channels.
I could go on and on showing you photos, sharing words.....
One book I've been trying to buy, but not succeeded, is Washington Irving's The Alhambra from 1851. Robert Irwin write that Hans Christian Andersen carefully studied Irving's narrative technique.....the tale of the Arab astrologer in Irving's book was retold in Pushkin's folk poem The Golden Cockerel (1835) and.....the artist David Roberts was moved to visit the Alkhambra after reading Irving.
What about you? Are you moved to visit by now, or do you need more?
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