Alhama de Granada

[onlyMark]

A small town about 50km away from Granada. Not touristic, not well known, not on any ‘beaten path’ or in fact any path particularly at all. I wouldn’t say it’s in the middle of nowhere but if you imagine a rectangle with the towns of Malaga bottom left, Motril bottom right, Granada top right and Antequera top left. It is 80km along bottom and top and 50km along each side.
Inside the rectangle are just small towns and villages joined often by single track roads. Just wide enough to let two cars pass and without a central white line.
Drop a diagonal line between opposite corners and Alhama is about on their crossing point. Nearly dead centre.

In that area are lots of hills and valleys and gorges due to natural water erosion. Some olive and almond groves but mainly normal agricultural land where it can be and where wheat is grown.
There is also a national park with many big hills verging on what you could call mountains. To me they are mountains, to others, just hills, but no matter the scenery is quite spectacular at times.
In the hot dry summers though after the wheat has been harvested, everywhere is more desolate and grey/sandy coloured than green - except where the rivers flow, as expected, and it is lush green.

There are several places in Spain called Alhama and variations of it (but not to be confused with Alhambra which means ‘red fortress’) so wherever they are they have the name of their province attached. Thus Alhama de Granada is the one in Granada Province.
Alhama means the hot springs/baths (from the Arabic) and in case you didn’t know, so I’ll tell you, many places in Spain start with “Al.....” but the hyphen normally associated has now been missed out, so Al-hama (hamam), means The Hot Springs.
Going around Spain anything beginning ‘Al’ was named from the time of the Moors (between 711AD and 1492AD).
You’ll often see in what was a Moorish town/city areas maybe called Albaicín (suburb of the falconers in Granada), Alcazar and Alcazaba (“...an Alcazar was a fortified palace built for a king, of which there were many in the Moorish era, and an Alcazaba was a fortified or defensive city, home to the troops”), the Al just meaning ’the’ whatever it is.

[onlyMark]

End of lesson and time for some photos.
Alhama does have hot springs, originally discovered by the Romans but taken over by the Arabs. From where I was staying is was quite a long walk down the gorge to them and considering it was close on 40 degrees when I arrived, I had no need of a hot bath.
I’d been to see my brother south of Granada for a few hours the made my way across.
I stayed in a small three roomed guest house overlooking the gorge.
This was my view from the balcony -

[onlyMark]

I took in the view for a while but then hunger got the better of me and I made my way all of 100m to the centre of the old town in search of sustenance.
A menu del dia caught my eye.
It was 11.50 Euro for three courses and bread.
Not a lot of choice but for a small town, fair enough.
Starters were a mixed salad, pasta Bolognese, salmorejo or gazpacho or a rice and broth soup.
Main course was grilled chicken, pork steak, fried seafood or croquettes, chips and egg.




Salad and croquettes then. Unfortunately and virtually unknown those two came out at about the same time -






There was a choice of desserts. These are rarely written down, the waiter just tells you what they have. I opted for Pan de Calatrava (“flan baked with stale bread or sponge cake with a caramel sauce on top”).
Totally filling because I was quite hungry after not eating much until about 3pm -




Time to work off some calories and sweat out some toxins.
Forgot to mention at the top of the plates you can see a smaller plate with a couple of small sausages and a piece of bread. This was the tapa that comes anyway with a drink. It was twice as big with some peppers on it as well but I had to nibble on something.

More about the town in the morning (my morning).

[mich64]

Looks like a tasty meal and beautiful views.

[onlyMark]

It was Mich, it was.

[onlyMark]

The history of the town follows the general history of the area. Taken over by the Moors, fortified, forced out by the Christians and re-built only to fall onto hard times in the 17th, 18th and 19th Centuries. It is still not a particularly rich area at all and I do wonder sometimes in these places, what they do for a living. Farming for sure but unless they have a long commute, there isn’t much for work at all.

Some of the original walls -










This is the Convent of Carmen built in 1589 from local donations. At one time Napoleon turned up and the troops stole anything not nailed down -

[onlyMark]

A quick view of an abandoned building down in the gorge -




Then around the side and a view of the path down the gorge leading to the hot springs -






A random building and a nice cool spring I had a drink from. I was ready for it as well -






Looking down the left side of the gorge from the Convent. I was heading that way -






Aha! A tourist signpost. I never found the dungeons by the way -




Wandering down the old part of town -

[onlyMark]

There were more cats than you could shake a stick at -






At the edge/end of town were quite a few ruined buildings -




Looking all the way back to the Convent -




Hang on a minute, is that my balcony? -




Ah yes, the lower one -



Just at the edge of town are a set of steps cut into the rock down to the gorge and called the Devil’s Ladder. They are well worn and look like they need climbing gear to negotiate.
I took though an easy meander -

[onlyMark]

This is, or rather was, the Church of the Angustias. Built in the baroque style in the 17th century but looted and burnt down in the Spanish Civil War. Can’t access it due to the danger of collapse -




Further -






Bit of a strange thing. A fountain, the oldest in the town built in 1533.
Named though after a Gothic King called Wamba, king of the Visigoths from 672 to 680 - one of the last kings of Visigothic Hispania before the conquest of Spain -




Not much to see here but this was the hospital. It was though the first built in the Kingdom of Granada between 1485 and 1510 -

[onlyMark]

A few things happening here by this church as I flit backwards and forwards. We have a granary, a prison and a square. This was the public granary. Built in the 16th Century, used to store wheat which was sold back to the inhabitants at “reasonable prices” in times of shortage -




A couple of fountains -






The prison, built in 1674 and square in front of it -




Not apparently open much and not open when I was there. This is probably where the aforementioned dungeons are -




The church, Church of the Incarnation, was built on the site of an old Mosque in the 16th century. Looking at photos of the inside it was no loss to me that it was closed -














Last thing of note in my circular walk is this -



It’s called the Inquisition House, reconstructed in the 1960’s from the old house - which is a mystery as to its name because at no time was it associated with the Inquisition.
A mystery for another day I think.
I made my way the short distance to my guest house via a small supermarket where I collected a few cold drinks, a baguette and some cheese and relaxed on the balcony until after the sun went down.

I howled at the full moon for a while later and went to my air conditioned bed -

[kerouac2]

The view from the guesthouse is absolutely spectacular. The red walls of the old fortress certainly make a contrast with the colour scheme of the rest of the town.

I don't know about Spain, but a dungeon (donjon) in France is an old tower, not the underground prison cell that comes to mind in English.

Whenever you examine an excellent photo of the moon (like yours), what really stands out are the number of direct hits the moon has taken from other falling objects over the millions of years, more than enough to kill the local dinosaur population many times over.  Good thing they never had any dinosaurs up there.

[onlyMark]

In Spanish, dungeons are mazmorras and I had to check with my other photos that is what it says on the sign.
"..a dungeon (donjon) in France is an old tower" - You have dungeons up an old tower? A donjon is a dungeon is an old tower.......?

The moon is a quarter the size of the earth, give or take, but the surface area of the moon is only 7.4% of the earth (google). I wonder then if proportionally the Earth gets thirteen and a half times the amount of rocky things attacking it. The saving grace is I suppose the atmosphere but at one time it didn't have one, so maybe there is a lot more damage to the earth than we realise.
In fact I think the theory is that something the size of Mars hit the Earth - "The standard giant-impact hypothesis suggests that a Mars-sized body, called Theia, impacted the proto-Earth, creating a large debris ring around Earth, which then accreted to form the Moon." - also gave us the tilt and wobble the earth has.
Space snooker then.

[mich64]

I too always wonder what people do who live in small towns we visit. This one does look like there is quite a bit of agriculture in the area.

Your accommodations look lovely, did you find it on-line?

Maybe the inquisition house was a type of lawyers establishment or town hall? Interesting to try to think of the possibilities.

[onlyMark]

I think the farming plays a large part in employment because I can't think of much else.
I just looked on Booking.com for the night I wanted and searched in a large area but used filters to get a good and not expensive room. Looked where they were and decided on Alhama.
This was the room. Cost 70 Euros.
Just outside the entrance door I come in at the start is a small kitchen shared between the three rooms with free tea and coffee and cake -

[kerouac2]

Aug 21, 2024 13:15:03 GMT onlyMark said:

You have dungeons up an old tower?

A donjon is just a fortified watchtower in most cases. People like Raiponce (Rapunzel) sometimes lived in them in prison conditions. As for a dungeon as we understand it in English, that is an oubliette (a place to forget people) or a cachot (a place to hide them away).

[onlyMark]

We do use oubliette that may be part of a dungeon or separate where someone would be dropped in with no way out, from what I remember from my castle architecture.

[lugg]

What a fab report Mark, thank you , really enjoyed the photos and your impressions . I love Andalusia ...this part of Spain I think ... but have yet to go to the Alhambra .

[onlyMark]

Thanks.
Book tickets well in advance if you ever get the chance to go to the Alhambra. Weeks if not months. Not sure how far in advance you can book.

[cheerypeabrain]

Ooh this is a spiffing report, what a beautiful place! Thank you Mr Mark x

[onlyMark]

You're welcome young peabrain.

[tod2]

Great work Mark! It needs a second and even third viewing to see it all in ancient detail. Those rolling hills mostly covered in olive trees make a lovely "van Gogh" scene to paint.

[onlyMark]

It's well worth a visit but not easy to get to unless you have your own transport.