A Tale of The Alhambra: Moonlight, The Moorish Baths & A Zippo Lighter

* * * * *


 

by Gerry Dawes ©2020

In the depths of La Alhambra, Robert struck the flint wheel of the Zippo lighter his uncle had given him when he left for his Navy tour-of-duty in Rota, Spain. In the lighter's flame, the walls of the old Moorish baths were bathed in a warm glow and the water in the bathing basins reflected the flickering yellow light. With the glow of the light, Robert, Julia, and Paul Andrews, a Baltimore doctor touring Spain, momentarily lost the spooky sensations they had been feeling as they stood in darkness, which was pierced only by the filtered light of the full moon as it passed through the glass coverings of the small eight-pointed star-shaped skylights of the 14th-Century baths.

Adding to the escalofriante (spine-tingling) air of being down in this old place, at night, in the dark, was the fact that what they were doing was totally illegal and they were doing it in national monument in Generalisimo Franco's Spain. And they were lighting their way only by a cigarette lighter, which quickly got too hot to hold, and was running low on fluid. Robert gingerly flipped the top on the lighter and light went out. Juggling it in his hands he laid it on the edge of one of the baths to cool. 

 

It might have been spooky down there, but, what an adventure they were having, clandestinely exploring sections of the Alhambra that were closed to the public at night! Along the way, before they had reached the baths, they had stood in the shadows, watching as a few people shuffled through the lighted sections that had been approved for the night tour.

It was a wonderful May night. The sky was clear and there was a full moon. The cool blue-white moonlight washed over the old Nasrid fortress, which takes up a whole ridge above the magical old city of Granada. Someone had told Paul that sometimes you could still hear nightingales singing in the Alhambra on nights of the full moon. "Maybe you will be lucky and hear them," the man had said, "they don't like pollution; it is believed that the exhaust from automobiles is driving them away."

Most of the tourists who visited La Alhambra during the day either didn't realize this was one of the two nights per week that the Alhambra was open or they simply did not want to trek back up the hill after touring all day. So Robert, Julia and Dr. Paul were sharing the grounds and palaces of this fantastic old Moorish stronghold with at most 20 other people and just a few guards who tended to move around as the main body of tourists moved through. 

At one point in the Hall of the Ambassadors in the Palacio de Comares, Robert, who from previous visits was somewhat familiar with the layout of the Alhambra, noticed that they were the only people in that section. He looked around for the guards and saw no one. "Follow me," he whispered to the others and moved a short white wooden picket fence-like barrier that was the only thing blocking anyone from entering the closed off areas of this magical palace. "If anyone sees us, act lost and speak only in English," he told Julia and Paul. "Pretend to be grateful that they have found us." 

They crept quietly, treading like American Indian stalkers along the passageways, keeping to the shadows when they spotted a tourist or a guard in the lighted sections across a courtyard, whose fountains still bubbled in the night, splashing and gurgling, making the same sounds they did when this remarkable place was inhabited by the Nazrid rulers of the last Moorish taifa state left in el Andaluz back in the 14th and 15th centuries. Always in these Moorish places, there was water, the most prized liquid in the world to the desert-rooted Moor. They built man-made oases into their palaces and the sound of water splashing was an unbroken link to the past, like music from a bygone era. There were fountains like the one in the Court of the Lions and there were long, deep pools for ornamentation--now with goldfish--and for bathing. The pools were surrounded with hedges and palm trees. This place must have been a paradise on earth for the Nasrid ruling class.

 

Now Robert, Julia and Paul had it to themselves. Robert wished that just he and Julia were sharing this magical night. Had they been alone, perhaps, on one of the benches in the Moorish baths with just the shafts of moonlight shining on them, they could have--and probably would have. . . To himself, Robert momentarily fantasized what he might have been tempted to do if only he and Julia were down in these baths by themselves.  

 

The thoughts of being discovered by the guards in the act of making love to his pretty young wife in the Moorish baths—in Franco’s police state Spain--erased the idea of how exciting that might have been.  The sound of footsteps brought Robert out of his momentary fantasy and they saw the glow from a light coming from around the corner at the end of the passageway to the right. Someone, probably a security guard, was coming. "Let's get out of here," Robert whispered

Robert hoped he could quickly find his way back to an area where they could casually stroll around a corner into a lighted area, blend in with some of the other people and drift on out of the Alhambra, having pulled off a spectacular romantic coup, a tale that with retelling would ripen into vintage nostalgia. 

 

They felt their way along the tunnel-like corridors, sometimes in near darkness, sometimes in filtered moonlight. At one point, it was so dark that Robert reached for his lighter, but realized he no longer had it. He must have left it at the baths when he put it down to cool. 

 

"Damn it," he thought, "the only thing I can do is come back in the morning, get in line early, pay another admission and see if I can get back to the baths to retrieve it before someone finds it."

 

At last, feeling their way along the wall, they came to some steps that they hoped would lead them back to a place where they could blend in again in the legal zones of palace.

 

At the top of the stairs the reached the moveable picket barrier and Robert, stopped. " Freeze!," he whispered in the direction of Julia and Paul. "Don't make a sound." 

 

They listened, but heard no footsteps and saw no light. Perhaps the guard had just been checking the baths, saw no one and went back the way he had come. Then they all heard something else. They remained still and heard it again. It was the sweet song of the nightingale on a night of the full moon in the Alhambra of Granada and they had a truly magical element to add to the tale of their night in the old Moorish fortress.

At the top of the stairs was a place that Robert knew. 

 

He silently removed the little wooden barrier and they passed back into the legal areas. Robert put his hands in his pockets and they strolled through a filigree doorway and into a lighted, arabesque-adorned hall. A guard motioned for them to hustle, it was closing time. He ushered them along towards an exit to the public grounds outside. As they rounded the corner of Palacio de Carlos V, a big, square, blocky building that was as incongruous in this graceful place as a sumo wrestler om a Swan Lake ballet, a flashlight-toting guard came up behind them.

 

"Señores, perdonen," he said, "¿Es de ustedes?" (Is this yours?)  He asked, holding the Zippo lighter with Robert's initials on it. 

 

"No," Robert said, "No fumo (I don't smoke)."

 

"Pues, nada," said the guard, and they walked away. 

 

The guard flipped open the Zippo, lit a cigarette and inhaled a puff from the black Spanish Ducado cigarette and grinning watched Robert, Julia and Paul disappear into the night.

 

- The End -

Gerry Dawes©2020
gerrydawes@aol.com

* * * * *

  Shall deeds of Caesar or Napoleon ring
More true than Don Quixote's vapouring?
Hath winged Pegasus more nobly trod
Than Rocinante stumbling up to God?

 

Poem by Archer M. Huntington inscribed under the Don Quixote on his horse Rocinante bas-relief sculpture by his wife, Anna Vaughn Hyatt Huntington,

in the courtyard of the Hispanic Society of America’s incredible museum at 613 W. 155th Street, New York City.

 _____________________________________________________________________________________

 

About Gerry Dawes

My good friend Gerry Dawes, the unbridled Spanish food and wine enthusiast cum expert whose writing, photography, and countless crisscrossings of the peninsula have done the most to introduce Americans—and especially American food professionals—to my country's culinary life." -- Chef-restaurateur-humanitarian José Andrés, Nobel Peace Prize Nominee and Oscar Presenter 2019

Gerry Dawes is the Producer and Program Host of Gerry Dawes & Friends, a weekly radio progam on Pawling Public Radio in Pawling, New York (streaming live and archived at www.pawlingpublicradio.org and at www.beatofthevalley.com.)

Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles & Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the 2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià. 

In December, 2009, Dawes was awarded the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award in a profile written by José Andrés. 

". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts, October 2009. 

 

Pilot for a reality television series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.
 

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Customized Culinary, Wine & Cultural Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain  

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@gmail.com

Spanish Brandies to Warm Your Soul and Spike Your Chocolate For Chocolate Con Churros

* * * * *

Text & Photos
by Gerry Dawes©2018

(*See postscript about Los Artesanos 1902* in Madrid.)

 

Pouring Gran Duque de Alba Solera Gran Reserva Brandy de Jerez in warmed snifters in a café in Madrid, like it used to be done at the Gran Café "El Suizo" in Granada.

There used to be a wonderful classic bar called the Gran Café Granada, located in the center of that great old Moorish city in Southern Spain.  The Gran Café, known to generations of granadinos as "El Suizo," was near an equally wonderful old 19th-century hotel, the Victoria, where I used to stay when I lived in Spain and would go periodically to Granada to visit the magical Alhambra and the gardens of the Generalife; the Cathedral's Royal Chapel to see the tombs of Isabel and Ferdinand and their daughter and son-in-law, Juana la Loca and Phillip the Fair; and the Sacristy, just off the Royal Chapel, where I was smitten with the exquisite beauty of Queen Isabela's superb, once-lost collection of Flemish masterpieces by Van der Weyden, Memling, and Bouts.

 The Alhambra, Granada.

 A XV Century Hans Memling, one of the great paintings in the Flemish collection of La Capilla Real in Granada.

 Tomb of Queen Isabel and King Fernando in La Capilla Real in Granada.

The Hotel Victoria is now a hotel in the NH Collection group and they have removed the naughty Victorian cartoons that hung on the walls of its bar, but El Suizo, right across the street, hung on until 1986 when it was demolished for what is now a Burger King.  El Suizo was one of those big, bright places with lots of big mirrors, columns holding up the tall ceilings, and marble-topped, wrought-iron tables; it was like those clean, well-lighted places that Hemingway wrote about.

El Suizo had journeyman waiters with white jackets who would warm your brandy glasses for you on cold nights in February, when even the palm trees and olive groves up on the the fabled Alhambra hill would be dusted with new snow blown down from the Sierra Nevadas that tower majestically over the landscape south of town.  Nothing much could ever warm your feet in Andalucia in the winter in those days; the Andalucians just simply refused to acknowledge that cold was a factor in these Southern climes, so public places (and most private ones, too), lacked central heating.  But, you could heat your insides with a good shot of Spanish brandy, especially when it was warmed for you like it was by the waiters at the El Suizo.

 A white-jacketed waiter at Churrería-Chocolatería Los Artesanos 1902 in Madrid, bringing brandy snifters with hot water to warm them like it used to be done at the Gran Café in Granada.

On this occasion, a well-heeled friend from America was inviting us to the best, so we each chose a different top-of-the-line Jerez brandy to compare.  We ordered the smooth, well-balanced Carlos I (Primero) from Domecq, the paler, elegant Lepanto from Gonzalez-Byass, and the dark velvety Gran Duque de Alba.

Our waiter at the El Suizo came to our table bearing a tray with steaming demi-tasse cups of strong, black Spanish café, and three brandy snifters filled with piping hot water, each topped with a cloth napkin. 

 At Churrería-Chocolatería Los Artesanos 1902 in Madrid, brandy snifters with hot water to warm them like it used to be done at the Gran Café in Granada.

 

The waiter took the snifters one at a time, removed its napkin, poured off the hot water into metal pitcher, and carefully dried each glass.  Then he poured a generous ration of the brandy, re-covered each snifter with a napkin, and placed them in front of us to allow the warming aromas to build to a crescendo.

 Pouring Gran Duque de Alba Solera Gran Reserva Brandy de Jerez in warmed snifters at Los Artesanos 1902 in Madrid, like it used to be done at the Gran Café in Granada.

I had chosen Gran Duque de Alba.  As I removed the napkin from the heated glass, the exotic, caramel-laced vapors rushed out with a promise of warmth that one sip of the lush brandy soon delivered.  And, although those latter-day saints, the perfectionists who continually dissect the fine art of drinking, will tell you that you are not supposed to do this to fine spirits, I will tell you that none but a Philistine could resist the ritual warming of the brandy at El Suizo on a winter's night in Granada.

The Brandy de Jerez denominación de origen was created to protect the sales domain of the big Sherry producers who make this fine stuff, and also to find a good excuse to promote the brandies, since the sale of spirits is vitally important to many Sherry bodegas.  The denominación específica (DE), or specific denomination, Brandy de Jerez refers as much to the method of elaboration as it does to region since most of the wine distilled for use in Jerez brandies comes from La Mancha and Extremadura, although, obviously, the brandy must be aged in Jerez to qualify for this new denominación.  And it should be remembered that Brandy de Jerez does not include any of the superb Charentais-method brandies of Catalunya, nor any of the other brandies of Spain.

In Spain practically every hotel, restaurant, and bar carries a broad selection of Spanish brandies ranging from inexpensive styles made by the continuous distillation process to expensive brands produced by long solera aging and/or the French Charentais (pot-still) process.  Although brandy is produced all across Spain, it is the big sherry producers of Jerez who account for the majority of Spanish brandies, and it is their brands that you are most likely to encounter both in Spain and abroad.  The unique qualities of Jerez brandies come from being aged in the solera system like sherry, which not only guarantees a continuity of quality and style, it allows the young brandy to assume the characteristics of the older, more mature, stocks.

The best Jerez brandies, ranked by many experts alongside French cognac and armagnac as among the top brandies in the world, are now called Solera Gran Reserva, after the method of production that requires a minimum of three years of barrel aging.  Most of these fine, smooth old Gran Reserva brandies, however, spend 10 to 15 years in a solera that originally may have been established up to a hundred years ago.  They are sweeter, smoother, softer, and not as fiery as cognac or armagnac.

Several top brands of Solera Gran Reserva Brandies de Jerez are available in the United States.  Most of these fine Solera Gran Reserva brandies are put up in attractive stoppered glass decanters or unusually shaped bottles packed in red felt boxes, satin-lined boxes, and even cork boxes that make distinctive, prestigious gifts for the holidays.  Besides the luxury brandies, Gran Duque de Alba, Lepanto, and Domecq's Carlos I, that we drank at El Suizo, there are there are several other stellar brands to consider: the superb Sánchez Romate Hermanos Cardenal Mendoza, an exceptional brandy in a cork box; Domecq's top-of-the-line Carlos I Imperial, in a crystal decanter; Osborne's Conde de Osborne in an odd-shaped bottle originally designed by Salvador Dali; and Garvey's Renacimiento (Renaissance), a very fine, smooth old brandy from the bodega that makes San Patricio fino sherry.

- - The End - -

*Postcript:   My experiences with this classic Brandy warming technique were in the early 1970s.  I would see it repeated on a few other occasions, usually in Sevilla and usually when I specifically requested it, but I had not seen this done for decades until I took Chefs Ryan McIlwraith (Bellota and Barcina, San Francisco) and his sous chef Joel Ehrlichon an exploratory gastronomic and wine trip around Spain in 2014 prior to the opening of Bellota.  One of my old haunts in Madrid, the classic Chocolatería San Ginés had changed hands and no longer served good Brandies de Jerez, with which I used to spike the chocolate I dipped my churros in.  With a little research, I discovered Churrería-Chocolatería Los Artesanos 1902, which is just a couple of blocks from  Chocolatería San Ginés, is less mobbed and has a full bar, plus the chocolate and churros are just as good and the Brandy service is terrific.

____________________________________________________________

 

 About Gerry Dawes

Gerry Dawes is the Producer and Program Host of Gerry Dawes & Friends, a weekly radio progam on WPWL 103.7 FM Pawling Public Radio in Pawling, New York.

Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles & Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the 2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià. 

In December, 2009, Dawes was awarded the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award in a profile written by José Andrés. 

". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts, October 2009. 
 

Pilot for a reality television series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.
 

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Customized Culinary, Wine & Cultural Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain  

Gerry Dawes can be reached at  gerrydawes@gmail.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@spanishartisanwine.com

A Tale of La Alhambra: Moonlight, Moorish Baths & A Zippo Cigarette Lighter by Gerry Dawes ©2012. A Re-telling Inspired by Guitar Piece Played by Maestro Pablo Saínz Villegas

* * * * *

Many years ago, I wrote a short story about an adventure I had in La Alhambra, Granada's Moorish fortress, one of the most unique, wonderful and emblematic cultural monuments on the planet. The experience occurred in the early 1970s during the eight years I lived in Andalucía, when I had the good luck to visit Granada at least a half dozen times (and have been there a few times since, including on Oct. 17, 2013).

I put the story aside, along with a story--Spanish Spirits to Warm Your Soul at the Gran Café 'El Suizo' in Granada--that I did two decades ago about drinking Jerez brandy in Granada on a cold February night in the superb old Gran Café Granada, popularly known as ‘El Suizo' (now, lamentably closed). The formally attired waiters at El Suizo warmed large brandy snifters with hot water, ritually dried them with a white napkin, then poured a Gran Duque de Alba or Cardenal Mendoza or Lepanto, whose sweet volatized perfume was enough to warm your soul. 

With your warm, rich brandy, you felt immediately at peace in that elegant, classic place and you knew you would sit at those marble-topped tables lost in conversation until the yawns of waiters--some of whom had been serving brandy properly for more than two generations--let you know that it was time to go.

In late January (2009) in Larchmont, New York, at a private recital organized by my friend Hayes Cavanaugh--a lawyer and accomplished jazz musician who loves Spain--all this came back to me as I was listening to Francisco Tárrega's lovely Recuerdos De La Alhambra guitar piece being played by a consummate young Riojan maestro, Pablo Saínz Villegas, who has a flawless touch as silky and elegant as any guitarist I have ever heard. 

Pablo introduced the piece by saying that the composer had been inspired by the fountains of the Alhambra, whose bubbling waters can be heard tinkling everywhere throughout the lovely gardens and magnificent buildings of this most poetic, evocative and romantic of Spain's incredible collection of historic sites. 

The sound of the water is the legacy of the Nasrid rulers who had to abandon this magical place in the face of the triumphant Christian army of Queen Isabela and King Ferdinand in 1492 following, whose long siege of Granada was conducted from the newly built town of Santa Fe, a few miles away. 

It is this sound of water--essentially an unbroken stream of natural music--that is a direct link to the last Moorish taifa of Spain that stretches back more than five centuries. If they returned today with their eyes closed, the sound of the fountains would assure them that they were indeed back home in the Alhambra.
 

Pablo Saínz Villegas's splendid touch with the guitar, seemingly caressing the strings, never strumming them, but stroking them seamlessly, was as magical as the Alhambra. Shortly into his piece I was literally in a trance. Indeed Pablo Saínz himself seemed transported. His music recalled those tinkling fountains and I was transported back to Granada, literally seeing the places I had been, smelling the flowers in the gardens, recalling the arabesques of the Alhambra's stunningly honeycombed palace halls, seeing the reflecting pools and the fountains flowing, bubbling, tinkling just as the notes were flowing from the string of his gently coaxed guitar.

I had never met Pablo Saínz and I am ashamed to say that I had never even heard of him. (Look in on Pablo's website, read about his meteoric career and the top awards he has won; listen to his marvelous, magical guitar music; buy his recordings, find out where he is playing and experience his incredible musical touch in person--something, as you have read, that is not easy to forget once you have been exposed to it. [You can listen to his music in the background, as I do sometimes when I am working.]

When Pablo finished and I came out of my trance, I told him that he had taken me back to a night of the full moon in the Alhambra which is the basis for the adventure that follows. 

His music inspired me to dust off this long mislaid story, which I promised to send to him and so I decided it put in on my blog. If you enjoy this story, please let me know. [In fact, you can listen to Pablo performing Recuerdos de La Alhambra on stage as you read my piece. Pablo's performance will certainly enhance my very modest writing effort.]

A Tale of The Alhambra:

Moonlight, Moorish Baths & A Zippo Cigarette Lighter

by Gerry Dawes ©2012

In the depths of the Alhambra, Robert struck the flint wheel of the Zippo lighter his uncle had given him when he left for his Navy tour-of-duty in Spain. In the lighter's flame, the walls of the old Moorish baths were bathed in a warm glow and the water in the bathing basins reflected the flickering yellow light.

With  the light, Robert, Julia, and Paul Andrews, a Baltimore doctor touring Spain, momentarily lost the spooky sensations they had been feeling as they stood in darkness, which was pierced only by the filtered light of the full moon as it passed through the glass covering the small eight-pointed star-shaped skylights of the 14th-Century baths.

Adding to the escalofriante (spine-tingling) air of being down in this old place in the dark was the fact that what they were doing was totally illegal and they were doing it in a national monument in Generalisimo Franco's Spain.  And they were lighting their way just by a cigarette lighter, which quickly got too hot to hold, and was running low on fluid. Robert gingerly flipped the top on the lighter and the light went out. Juggling it in his hands, he laid it on the edge of one of the baths to cool.

It might have been spooky down there, but, what an adventure they were having, clandestinely exploring sections of the Alhambra that were closed to the public at night! Along the way, before they had reached the baths, they had stood in the shadows, watching as a few people shuffled through the lighted sections that had been approved for the night tour.  

One of those sections was the suite of rooms occupied by Washington Irving, author of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent in which the immortal short stories, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle" appeared.   Irving actually lived and wrote in the Alhambra while he was working on A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada (a history of the years 1478–1492).  Irving was so inspired by the magical beauty of the Alhambra that he wrote Tales of the Alhambra, a book that is still in print in various editions and is sold in gift shops and book stores in the Alhambra and all around Granada.

It was a wonderful May night. The sky was clear and there was a full moon. The cool blue-white moonlight washed over the old Nasrid fortress, which takes up a whole ridge above the magical ancient city of Granada. Someone had told Paul Andrews that sometimes you could still hear nightingales singing in the Alhambra on nights of the full moon. "Maybe you will be lucky and hear them," the man had said, "they don't like pollution; it is believed that the exhaust from automobiles is driving them away."

Most of the tourists who visited La Alhambra during the day either didn't realize this was one of the two nights per week that the Alhambra was open or they simply did not want to trek back up the hill after touring all day. So, Robert, Julia, and Dr. Paul were sharing the grounds and palaces of this fantastic old Moorish stronghold with at most 20 other people and just a few guards who tended to move around as the main body of tourists moved through.

At one point in the Hall of the Ambassadors, Robert, who was familiar with the layout of the Alhambra, noticed that they were the only people in that section. He looked around for the guards and saw no one. "Follow me," he whispered to the others and moved a short white wooden picket fence-like barrier that was the only thing blocking anyone from entering the closed off areas of this magical palace. "If anyone sees us, act lost and speak only in English," he told Julia and Paul. "Pretend to be grateful that they have found us." 

They crept quietly, treading Indian-like along the passageways, keeping to the shadows when they spotted a tourist or a guard in the lighted sections across a courtyard, whose fountains still bubbled in the night, splashing and gurgling, making the same sounds they did when this remarkable place was inhabited by the Moors back in the 14th and 15th centuries. Always in these Moorish places, there was water, the most prized liquid in world to the desert-rooted Moor. 

The Moors built man-made oases into their palaces and the sound of water was an unbroken link to the past, like music from a bygone era. There were the fountains like the one in the Court of the Lions and there were long, deep pools for ornamentation--now with goldfish--and for bathing. The pools were surrounded with hedges and palm trees. This place must have been a paradise on earth for the Moorish ruling class.

And, now Robert, Julia, and Paul had it to themselves. Robert wished that just he and Julia were sharing this magical night. Had they been alone, perhaps, on one of the benches in the Moorish baths with just the shafts of moonlight shining on them, they could have--and probably would have. . .

The sound of footsteps brought Robert out of his momentary fantasy and they saw the glow of a light coming from around the corner at the end of the passageway to the right. Someone, probably a security guard, was coming. "Let's get out of here," Robert motioned.

Now Robert hoped he could quickly find his way back to an area where they could casually stroll around a corner into a lighted area, blend in with some of the other people and drift on out of the Alhambra, having pulled off a spectacular romantic coup, a tale that with retelling would ripen into vintage nostalgia.

They felt their way along the tunnel-like corridors, sometimes in near darkness, sometimes in filtered moonlight. At one point, it was so dark that Robert reached for his lighter, but realized he no longer had it. He must have left it at the bath, when he put it down to cool.

"Damn it," he thought, "the only thing I can do is come back in the morning, get in line early, pay another admission, and see if I can get back to the baths to retrieve it before some one finds it." 

At last, feeling their way along the wall, they came to some steps that they hoped would lead them back to a place where they could blend in again in the legal zones of palace.

At the top of the stairs, Robert, stopped. "Stop! Freeze!," he whispered in the direction of Julia and Paul. "Don't make a sound."

They listened, but heard no footsteps and saw no light. Perhaps the guard had just been checking the baths, saw no one and went back the way he had come.

Then they all heard something else. They remained still and heard it again. It was the sweet song of the nightingale on a night of the full moon in the Alhambra of Granada and they had a truly magical element to add to the tale of their night in the old Moorish fortress.

At the top of the stairs was a place that Robert knew. He silently removed the little wooden barrier and they passed back into the legal areas. Robert put his hands in his pockets and they strolled through a filigree doorway and into a lighted, arabesque-adorned hall. 

A guard appeared and motioned for them to hurry, it was closing time. He ushered them along towards an exit to the public grounds outside. As they rounded the corner of Palacio de Carlos V, a big, square, blocky building that was as incongruous in this graceful place as a sumo wrestler dancing a Swan Lake ballet, a flashlight-toting guard came up behind them.

"Señores, perdonen," he said, "?Es de ustedes?" He asked, holding a Zippo lighter with Robert's initials on it.

"No," Robert said, "No fumo (I don't smoke)."

"Pues, nada," said the guard, and they walked away.

The guard flipped open the lighter, lit a cigarette, inhaled a puff from the black Spanish Ducado cigarette and grinning watched Robert, Julia and Paul disappear into the night.

- The End -

Gerry Dawes©2011 

About the author

Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine. 

A trailer for a proposed reality television series  
on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Culinary Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com;