Olive oil, oranges and sherry – these iconic Spanish products come out of the land of Andalusia, of its rolling hills baked to pale brown by the southern sun. Seville, Granada, Cordoba – these are the magical names of the great historic cities of Andalusia, famed worldwide. The Alcazar, the Alhambra – these global bywords for exotic beauty are actually the great Moorish palaces of Andalusia.
With all these superb attributes, it’s hardly surprising that the international image of Spain is very heavily weighted with the sights, sounds and tastes of Andalusia, that southernmost region imbued with the loveliness of the Moorish Islamic civilisation which lasted for almost eight centuries.
Forming more than a seventh of the Iberian peninsula, boasting both a Mediterranean and an Atlantic coastline, Spain’s highest mountain range, the Sierra Nevada, and one of its greatest rivers, the Guadalquivir, Andalusia is a world of its own, the sultry daughter of the southern sun.
The sub-tropical ambience begins even before you leave Madrid, in the great glass-roofed palm court of Atocha Station. Soon the high-speed AVE train is rocketing southward through rolling hills of brown rocky earth and parched grass, upon the heights of which, now and then, stand ruined castles.
In under two hours, the train eases into Cordoba station, and you are in the ancient capital of Moorish Spain, the land known as Al-Andalus. Here in the broad fertile valley of the Guadalquivir, the Moors created the centre of their brilliant civilisation in the 8th to the 11th centuries.
Since those times, around the old walled city, an elegant 19th century city and a spacious modern city have grown up, but the historic core still survives, a labyrinth of cobbled alleys and narrow streets, with whitewashed houses hung with pots of fragrant flowers, and little courtyards of orange trees.
All this clusters around the mighty remains of the Moorish grand mosque and the Catholic kings’ castle. The Mezquita was originally one of the greatest mosques of the Muslim world, an immense prayer hall held up by hundreds of double-horseshoe arches of white stone and red brick, creating a mesmerising forest of pillars and patterns. Then the Spanish Christians conquered Cordoba and built a Gothic cathedral in the middle of it. The result is a strange but beautiful hybrid – as is Cordoba’s other major relic, the Alcazar fortress palace used by the Catholic monarchs for the final campaign to oust the Moors from Spain, delightfully filled with gardens, pools and fountains.
Climbing the hill along narrow winding streets towards the city centre, you come to an elegant 19th century square, which seems to be Cordoba’s social centre, lined with cafes and restaurants. In the Plaza Tendillas, days cool into evening, assisted by refreshing jugs of delicious sangria. Andalusia is, after all, the birthplace of this iconic tipple.
Driving between Cordoba and Granada, through the rolling farmlands that are the lifeblood of Andalusia, you take the Route of the Caliphate, encountering a series of whitewashed hill towns guarded by hilltop forts, established by the Moors in the days of the Caliphs. Most magical is Zuheros, a village of brilliantly white houses that clings dramatically to a mountainside.
As you near Granada, the scenery becomes truly spectacular. Driving along the winding mountain road past Moclin with its enormous hilltop castle, through an aromatic pine forest, the land suddenly falls away and a vast open landscape filled with olive groves stretches out far below, undulating all the way to the city.
Granada is a bit of a shock at first – it’s a large modern city, not a dreamy magical realm. But as you reach the city’s historic core, with the immense citadel of the Alhambra above, it begins to live up to its poetic reputation. A complex of palaces, fortresses and gardens protected by huge fortifications, elevated above the city upon a rocky outcrop, this wonderland of man-made and natural beauty was the power base of the last Moorish kingdom in Spain, the Nasrid sultanate, flourishing for two and a half centuries until 1492.
Here in the reception halls and courtyards of the royal palace, Moorish decorative art reached its zenith. The Hall of the Ambassadors, the sultan’s audience room, is a symphony of intricate stucco carving, whilst the Court of the Lions, the most celebrated creation of Moorish Spain, is an exquisite arcaded patio, which generally reduces visitors to an awed silence.