For me, one of the greatest pleasures of traveling is personal exposure to great art and architecture, which I have compiled into a book called 100 Masterpieces of Europe . This is one of my favourites:
Nowhere else does the splendor of Moroccan civilization shine as beautifully as the Alhambra, the last and largest Moorish palace in Europe.
For seven centuries (711-1492) most of Spain was Muslim, ruled by Islamic Moors from North Africa. While the rest of Europe was dormant in the Middle Ages, Spain prospered under Moorish rule. The highlight is the Alhambra, a sprawling complex of palaces and gardens perched on a hill in Granada. Among the most remarkable is the magnificent Nasrid palace, where the sultans and their families lived, worked, and ruled courts.
Through the fragrant Patio de los Arrayanes, you enter a world of ornate rooms, stucco "stalactites," lacy windows and flowing fountains. Water, which is extremely rare and precious in the Islamic world, is the purest symbol of life. The Alhambra is decorated with water and water everywhere: constant, flowing, hiding secret chatter and dripping cutely.
As you explore the maze of rooms, you can easily imagine the sultan smoking a hookah, sitting on Persian pillows and carpets, with heavy curtains on the windows and burning incense in the lamps. The walls and ceilings are covered with intricate patterns carved from wood and stucco. (If the Alhambra's intricate patterns look pale, you look back: artist MC Escher drew inspiration from the Alhambra.) Because Muslim artists avoided depicting living things, they decorated them with calligraphy, used Arabic script, and transmitted verses and verses from the Qur'an. 'an. One phrase - "But God will triumph" - is repeated 9,000 times.
Generalife's gardens with manicured hedges, reflection pools, delightful fountains and a refreshing summer palace where sultans take a break from palace life. Its architect is in some ways the Qur'an, which says that Paradise is like a fertile oasis and that "those who believe and do good will enter Paradise where rivers flow" (Quran 22, 23).
The often photographed Patio de los Leones in the Alhambra is named after the fountain of 12 marble lions. Four aqueducts carry water outward, figuratively speaking, to the ends of the earth and literally to the Sultan's private quarters. As the poem engraved on the walls of the Alhambra says, "clear water" flows from the fountain, like "the full moon casts light from a clear sky."
The largest rooms in the palace are the ornate throne room and embassy hall. Here the Sultan, sitting on a throne under the starry dome, meets visitors. The ceiling, made of 8017 inlaid wooden blocks (like a giant puzzle), shows the infinite complexity of God's universe.
The throne room represents the torch's journey in Spanish history. It was here in 1492 that the last Moorish king surrendered to the Christians. So the two new kings, Ferdinand and Isabella, said "Yes, sir" to Christopher Columbus and began their journey to the New World, which would enrich Spain. But the glory of the Alhambra endured and added to the elegance and grace of Spanish art for centuries to come.
Today, the Alhambra serves as a suggestive reminder of the elegant Arab world that could have flourished across Europe but did not.