June 2008
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Victoria Hislop slips on her dancing shoes for a visit to Granada, Spain
Most visitors to Granada are drawn there by the Alhambra, the most visited monument in Spain. Each day, thousands are bussed in and driven up the hill to admire the blush-coloured towers and palaces that make up the complex, then they go on their way to Seville or Cordoba to take in other remnants of Moorish history.
On my first few visits, I failed to get a ticket for the Alhambra as they’d run out before I got to the head of the queue, but I wasn’t heartbroken. I had another reason for being there: to learn how to dance.
Music and dance permeate Granada. Lampposts are covered in flyers advertising courses and performances: sevillanas, bulerias, salsa, latina. If the streets seem quiet at midnight, it’s not because people are asleep. It’s because they are inside the clubs, dancing until the small hours or watching someone play flamenco guitar.
Several of my visits have been primarily for dance lessons, but I am now hooked on the place for its architecture as well as its ambience. Granada is a collection of distinct barrios, each with its own character. The Sacromonte, for example, is where the gypsies traditionally lived in homes hollowed out of the hillside. The Albaiceín, the Moorish quarter, is full of tea houses and narrow pathways. And the Realejo has vertiginous cobbled alleyways and spectacularly dramatic graffiti art. And there are more.
This patchwork of disparate periods and clashing styles somehow works. Granada has the best of the characterful old and the functional new, and, wherever you are, in the distance you can see the Sierra Nevada, which is often snow-capped until April.
You are constantly moving from light to shade and back again in Granada. You might be in narrow cobbled streets in the shadow of pale terracotta buildings with elegant wrought-iron balconies, when you suddenly emerge into a bright square with a fountain. Then you slip back into another alley before coming out again into an open public space where a café or five will be waiting, with their tables arranged to catch the sunshine. Granada can be both intimate and grand, changing from one moment to the next.
This is a city that lends itself to aimless wandering, and on my last few visits, when I have been trying to conjure up characters for a novel, there’s been nothing more elucidating than tramping the streets with regular stops in cafés and bars to eavesdrop and people-watch. Cafés provide wonderful snapshots of people’s lives. For me, most days start at half seven with a stroll down one of the cobbled, carless streets that crisscross the city.
Breakfast consists of lightly toasted bread covered in crushed tomatoes and dripping with olive oil. Almost every café serves these tostadas. I think they are meant to set you up for the day, but once the smell of churros starts to permeate the air mid-morning, I find that a small plateful of these warm, freshly cooked, stick-shaped doughnuts go down well with another cup of coffee. I am not alone in my greed. The cafés are always full of people – students, office workers and freshly coiffed women – chomping through these calorific snacks.
If I have a dance lesson or have taken another amble round the streets, the next pause in the day will be for lunch. Some of the best eafés are down on the Camino de Ronda and frequented by blue-overalled municipal workers, so you know they’re good value for money. We share the same taste in sardine bocadillos and tortillas, and I don’t even mind the way the barman knocks up my lunch with a Corona cigarette in one hand and a knife in the other. Along with the cracked Formica tables and fake oil paintings of women in frothy flamenco dresses, it’s all part of the atmosphere.
I’ve lost count of the number of evenings I’ve spent in the Bodegas Castañeda tapas bars. There are two with the same name, owing to a family fallout, but my favourite is the one in calle Almiceros. It’s always packed, but the waiters are friendly and, with each drink, you are given a plate of jamón, queso, olives or pâté. Afterwards I rarely have room for what my mother would call a ‘proper meal’. The forest of hams hanging down from the ceiling and the noise of locals talking and arguing near the bar is the essence of this part of Spain.
It sounds as though I do nothing but eat, drink and dance in Granada. That’s not entirely true. Last visit, I did eventually make it to the Alhambra. I managed to get a timed ticket for ten in the evening and sloshed around the patios in the pouring rain. Like everyone, I succumbed to its delicate Arabic charm and marvelled at the filigree carving and the translucent marble. It is, as people had always told me, perfect, but, for me, it’s no more so than anywhere else in this richly intoxicating city.
Victoria Hislop’s novel The Return (£17.99, Headline) is out now.
