Granada

At the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, between the rivers Darro and Genil, lies the enchanting city of Granada. Granada is music and poetry. With it's Moorish architecture and culture, Granada is, without a doubt, one of the most beautiful cities in Spain. Its history, its cobbled streets, its tapas bars and exquisite gastronomy never fail to impress visitors. Shakespeare wrote that ‘Every inquisitive traveller has Granada in their heart even without having visited’.  

The city’s name may have been derived either from the Spanish granada (“pomegranate”), a locally abundant fruit that appears on the city’s coat of arms, or from its Moorish name, Karnattah (Gharnāṭah), possibly meaning “hill of strangers.”  

Granada contains many notable architectural and artistic monuments. The city is the see of an archbishop, and it is dotted with fine Renaissance, Boroque and Neoclassical churches, convents, monasteries, palaces and mansions. At the centre of the city stands the Gothic Cathedral of Santa María de la Encarnación (1523–1703), containing the Royal Chapel (Capilla Real) with the tomb of Ferdinand and Isabella. The cathedral is decorated with jasper and coloured marble, and its interior contains many fine paintings and sculptures. The Cartuja, or Carthusian monastery (1516), stands in the north of the city. Near the restored monastery of San Jerónimo (1492) is the University of Granada with its small botanic garden which was founded in 1526.