GRANADA

The grand, medieval Alhambra palace sets the tone in a historic city awash with traditions. But while one foot is in the past, the other is tapping out a modern beat: scratch the surface to discover hidden trails, markets and a youthful music scene.

- Stephen Phelan

Returning to the Alhambra is like rereading a book. The hilltop citadel built by the Nasrid sultans above Granada was a masterpiece of medieval engineering, but also of literature — poetry and philosophy expressed in dreamlike architecture. Verses, blessings and ruminations were etched into its facades so the structure would seem to speak. In Arabic, of course, which I don’t understand at all.

On each of my three visits, spaced out over 20 years, I’ve heard guides translate various inscriptions from across the courtyards. ‘The perpetual bliss, the continual ecstasy…’ runs one long strand around the reflecting pool of the Comares Palace.

‘Be sparing with your words, and you’ll go in peace’ warns the inner wall above the Sultan’s throne, set beneath a domed roof composed of more than 8,000 separate pieces inlaid with a wooden constellation of stars, representing all seven heavens of Islamic cosmology. Today’s guide, Eduardo, says he’s never bored in his job because the Alhambra is so arcane and intricate that it reveals something new every time, while also remaining partly and eternally hidden.

Study it closely, read it as many times as you like, but the mystery remains. This is the real pleasure of the Alhambra. The Moors surrendered their rule of Spain more than half a millennium ago, but their legacy peeks out between Renaissance and modern buildings.