In Andalusia, separating myth from reality
LIAM LACEY
MALAGA, SPAIN — Special to The Globe and Mail
Published Thursday, Jul. 28, 2016 1:13PM EDT
Last updated Monday, Aug. 01, 2016 1:38PM EDT
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Versions of Andalusia
Myth and history blend together under the blazing sun of southern Spain. Liam Lacey tours so
more contentious sites in an attempt to untangle the truth
A panoramic view of the famous Alhambra de Granada, Andalusia, Spain. (bluejayphoto / iStockphoto)
Because I took the wrong train from Malaga’s Costa del Sol Airport, west instead of east, I fou
stop for Torremolinos and the name immediately evoked a kind of audible hallucination: Eric Id
from the vintage Monty Python travel­shop sketch, railing against the British package tourist se
coast:
“And, once a week, there’s an excursion to the local Roman ruins where you can buy Cherrya
ice­cream and bleeding Watney’s Red Barrel and one night they take you to a local restaurant
next to a party from Rhyl who keep singing Torremolinos, Torremolinos …”
Can we ever see a new place except through the filters of our preconceptions? In Andalusia, a
region south of Spain on the Mediterranean coast, the vines of myth and history are particularl
entangle: Much of what is recognized as Spanish, from bullfighting and flamenco, to hordes of
tourists – are predominantly Andalusian in origin.
Take that most Andalusian of stereotypes, the Gypsy temptress Carmen from the opera by Ge
Frenchman who never set foot across the Pyrenees. Not Spanish, right? Not so fast. In the wa
Andalusian two­and­a­half­year resistance to Napoleon’s troops at Cadiz, all of Europe becam
Andalusian culture. As cultural anthropologist William Washabaugh explains in the book Flame
Global Stage: “Spaniards themselves from all across the peninsula began taking pride in their lifestyle, bullfighting became the rage across Spain, and flamenco took Europe by storm. This in Carmen.” The femme fatale became “Spain’s own tragic identity marker.”
As I take the train back to Malaga, I’m thinking about the Andalusian progression, a characteri
four­chord sequence, descending from a yearning minor to a defiant major. You can hear it in Boheme from Carmen, but also in pop songs, such as Hit the Road, Jack. My Andalusian prog
me from the new cultural capital of Malaga to the Alhambra palace in Granada and the Great M
of Cordoba. Along the way, I vow to try my best to separate the Andalusian from Anda­illusion
Malaga: Gateway or stop and stay a while?
The opening of a major Picasso museum in 2003 helped transform Malaga from pit stop to cultural destination. (Sean Pavone / iStockph
As home to the major airport in southern Spain, Malaga is often dubbed “gateway to the Costa
travel brochure name for the narrow 300­kilometre strip of resort towns, both posh and budget
along the Mediterranean coast. “A good place to pass through,” said American travel guru Ric
television show a few years ago.
Today, Malaga has another reputation: Cultural hub, a city of more than 30 museums, with the
in Spain outside of Barcelona and Madrid. You can credit the change, indirectly, to the long bru
century’s most famous painter, Pablo Picasso, even if he left the city at the age of 10.
“The city centre is unrecognizable from what it was 15 years ago,” my tour guide, Alejandro Pe
Landa, says as we have lunch on the rooftop terrace of the AC Hotel Malaga Palacio, overlook
city’s most improved areas: The Old Town, with the cathedral with its egg­domed tower and bu
plazas, and to the south, the renovated port with its covered promenade.
When Museo Picasso Malaga opened in 2003, its effect was transformative. The city’s long­tim
Francisco de la Torre Prados, put culture on top of an economic renewal plan. After all, it work
following the Frank Gehry­designed Guggenheim Museum there in 1997.
The entrance of the Pablo Picasso Museum in Malaga, Spain. (iStockphoto)
The Picasso museum includes 233 works in the permanent collection, with another 43 on tem
bulk were donated by the artist’s daughter­in­law, Christine Ruiz Picasso, and her son, Bernar
of the artist’s more than 45,000 works, but it’s a uniquely personal collection covering eight de
focusing on family and his women muses, from childhood to the months before his death at 91
The same year the museum opened, the town centre was designated a pedestrian and histori
Roman theatre, uncovered during a building excavation in the 1950s, was restored as a workin
space. More museums followed, notably the contemporary art museum and the Carmen Thys
Malaga, focusing on 19th century Spanish painting. Last year, Malaga raised its culture status
of a satellite of Paris’s famous Centre Pompidou: The Centre Pompidou of Malaga sits beneat
glass cube near the port, where about 750,000 visitors a year arrive on cruise ships. Last year
of another European branch museum, the State Russian Museum St. Petersburg, known as th
Museuo Ruso, which is in an old tobacco factory.
“Years ago, all the tourists would turn right as they left the airport, heading directly to the Costa
mayor boasted to the Guardian last year. “Now they stop in Malaga.”
The port of Malaga, Spain. (Liam Lacey)
Malaga’s decision to look to history for its future is a reminder that Malaga has been a stoppin
time. Founded in 770 BC by seafaring Phoenicians from the Mideast, this is one of the world’s
archeological lasagna of Celtic, Greek, Byzantine, Roman and North African inhabitants. Two Antonio Banderas, another native son, bought a penthouse overlooking the old Roman theatre
hill that holds the well­preserved Moorish citadel, the Alcabaza.
A pathway takes you to the ruins of the 14th­century castle, the Gibralfaro, with the best vanta
watch the latest waves of invaders arrive from the cruise ships, and sweep through the town.
Granada, a psychedelic puzzle
Granada was briefly home to the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492 – the same year they sent Christopher Columbus on
World. (LuisMascoPH / iStockphoto)
The association of Moorish culture and sensual indulgence runs deep in Andalusia. The direct
fortress­castle of Alhambra, which looms behind red, crenelated walls, overlooking the city of G
1492, the last Arabic dynasty, the Nasrids, surrendered to the Spanish monarchs, Ferdinand a
claimed it as their trophy and briefly lived here. The same year, they sent Christopher Columbu
to the New World, and Spain became the richest empire in the world.
Alhambra’s own fortunes fell – it became a hospital, a debtors’ prison, a munitions dump – unt
rediscovered by late 18th­ and early 19th­century literary travellers.
“Such is the Alhambra,” wrote Washington Irving, who spent the summer of 1829 living here. “
the midst of a Christian land, an Oriental palace amidst the Gothic edifices of the West, an ele
a brave, intelligent and graceful people who conquered, ruled and passed away.”
A garden in Alhambra. (iStockphoto)
How brave and elegant the Nasrids were is debatable – seven of the first nine of the sultans w
– but the romantic reputation endures. Today, Alhambra is one of Spain’s major attractions, dr
visitors a year, though what exactly they are seeing is hard to define.
In his book on Alhambra, Richard Irwin writes: “There is uncertainty and dispute about every s
the Alhambra – its architecture, chronology, iconography, nomenclature and the way it was ori
We are dealing not so much with a body of knowledge as a body of wild guesses.”
Walking through the chambers of the palaces is, literally, entrancing. Buildings and hedges are
watery reflection, honeycombed ceilings seem to sway like pearl­and­lace wedding dresses, a
tile patterns make the walls dance. It’s no surprise that the work of Dutch artist M.C. Escher, in
Alhambra, was enthusiastically embraced by the hippie generation as psychedelic.
Walking through the Alhambra. (Liam Lacey)
Authenticity is a trickier question. Alhambra could be seen as less a Moorish artifact than a 50
restoration project, what one writer calls “a stepchild of history.” The construction materials – c
stucco – are fragile, and much of it is restored. A once famous mosque was razed, buildings th
were connected. In the 16th century, Ferdinand and Isabella’s grandson, Charles V, plunked a
palace in the Alhambra, which now serves as an outdoor music venue. Even the splendid gard
Alhambra and the Generalife summer residence, are recreations from the last century.
An average of more than 6,000 people a day make their way through the Alhambra, but the pl
almost reverent. During my visit to the Court of the Myrtles, an excited murmur passed through
glassy perfection of the pond had broken into ripples when an orange cat, the current sultan o
scooped a goldfish from the water and took it back to the myrtle hedge to eat. A minute later, i
post, staring through its reflection for a fresh victim.
Inside the Alhambra. (Consulate General of Spain)
From the walls of the Alhambra, you can look down on the Albayzin neighbourhood, the old M
the past 30 years, the narrow streets have been inhabited by Moroccan merchants, whose nar
leather goods and ceramics make the area resemble an Arab market again.
In 2003, Granada saw the opening of its first mosque in more than 500 years. Nowadays, inste
caravans, lines of tourists on Segway tours roll through the medieval streets.
Cordoba: Praying for peace
Though currently a catholic church, the Mezquita has a rich and complex history as both a Christian and Islamic holy site. (Liam Lacey)
We arrive in Cordoba, on a typical 36 C summer day, clutching our water bottles and ready to 10th century had to offer. Here, the Umayyad Dynasty, who had settled in Spain after being de
Damascus, declared a new caliphate, the spiritual leaders of the Muslim world. Not just a city, Jerusalem or Athens, is a symbolic city: A place where, according to one version of history, Mu
and Jews co­existed and, collectively, excelled in philosophy, science and the arts. The idea o
or “co­existence” of the three Abrahamic faiths, is often alluded to in Spanish tourist materials,
the cruelty of the Inquisition or the Franco years. U.S. President Barack Obama, in a 2009 spe
world at Cairo University, held up Cordoba as proof of Islam’s historic tolerance.
The Mezquita in Cordoba, Spain. (Consulate General of Spain)
But the Cordoba mythology is politically contentious, distorted by Middle East animosities and 9/11. In 2010, the name “Cordoba House,” was dropped from the proposed Islamic cultural ce
Manhattan’s Ground Zero. Critics such as conservative politician Newt Gingrich argued that C
model society, but a place where Christians and Jews were subjugated by their Muslim overlo
historian Mark R. Cohen, who has written a couple of Huffington Post columns on the subject,
somewhere in the middle. No doubt Jews and Christians in Cordoba were second­class citizen
enjoyed more religious and economic autonomy than non­Christians in the rest of medieval Eu
A visit to the famous building known as the Mosque­Cathedral of Cordoba, or the Great Mosqu
a peculiar exercise in cultural whiplash. Inside the old mosque prayer hall, about the size of th
there is a forest of more than 850 candy­striped red­and­white columns, supporting arches, ho
arches.
A medieval Arab visitor compared them to palm trees at an oasis, though the impression today
grand long­abandoned railway station, where the tourists, with their guide maps, suggest pass
their schedules: Last train for Paradise.
The Moorish architecture of the praying hall in the Mezquita. (Jose Ignacio Soto / iStockphoto)
Then, you pass through an arch and abruptly find you have stepped into a 16th­century Renai
cathedral, Our Lady of the Assumption. The soaring nave was created by knocking a hole in th
The Islamic abstraction gives way to representation of living figures: paintings and statues of h
including a statue of the legendary hero of the Christian reconquest, St. James the Moorslayer
a couple of Moorish heads rolling under his horse’s hooves. When Charles V saw the renovati
approved from afar, he reportedly regretted that the mosque had been so altered: “They have unique in all the world and destroyed it to build something you can find in any city.”
The Barrio Judera (Jewish Quarter) in Cordoba, Spain. (Consulate General of Spain)
Harmony does not yet reign on this doubly sacred site. In recent years, Spanish Muslims have
petitioned the Catholic Church for permission to pray in the mosque again. In April, the Cordob
overturned the local diocese’s attempt to register ownership of the building, a UNESCO herita
eighties.
“Religious consecration is not the way to acquire property,” admonished the report. Instead, th
site belongs to “each and every citizen of the world from whatever epoch and regardless of pe
culture or race.”
Malaga: Back to beginning
The cathedral in the centre of Malaga’s Old Town is one of the iconic scenes of the ancient – and recently revitalized – city. (Consulate G
Midnight, back in Malaga, and the festival of San Juan, marking eve of St. John the Baptist’s b
summer solstice, is in full swing. Groups of friends and families in bathing suits make their way
carrying coolers of food and drinks, and stake out spots on the man­made beach called La Ma
of bonfires are burning around the horseshoe­shaped port. Some people are sending flaming the sky over the Mediterranean, keeping light alive through the shortest night of the year.
Here, with my toes in the ocean in the flickering light and smoke, my progression ends and I re
Andalusian conclusion: History comes and goes; myths live on. These solstice bonfire festivals
to take place throughout Europe for centuries, perhaps fading embers of celebrations to an an
god. The thought makes me think more charitably of the tourists who flock in droves to the Co
summer: They are worshippers of the ancient people of the Sun King, their scorched skin a bu
celebrating with libations of Cherryade and Watney’s Red Barrel beer.
The writer travelled as a guest of Tourspain and the Andalusian Tourism Board. They did not r
the article.
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A courtyard in the Alhambra. (Liam Lacey)
If you go
Air Transat offers direct flights from Montreal to Malaga. If you’re including it in a European itin
airport has daily links to more than 100 cities in Europe, led by visitors from the United Kingdo
As a relaxing alternative, the AVE high­speed trains from Madrid take only about two hours to hours and 20 minutes to Malaga. renfe.com
Where to Stay
Malaga: AC Hotel Malaga Palacio has a perfect location for close­up views of the Malaga Cate
next door to the Old Town and the Picasso Museum. Atico, the bar and restaurant on the 15th
great views as well as a swimming pool. Rooms from $142. Calle Cortina del Muelle, 1, mariot
Granada: The comfortably old­fashioned Hotel Hesperia Granada, with 68 rooms around an in
is in the heart of the historic district. Close by is the Royal Chapel, burial site of the Kings Ferd
Isabella, the old Moorish district, the Albacin and the Plaza Nueve, shuttles can transport you the 20­minute uphill walk is too daunting. Rooms from $87. Plaza de Gamboa, nh­hotels.com