Alhambra/The Constant Princess (1)

On the plane, I like to read fiction set in the location I'm going to. Fiction is in many ways more useful than a guidebook, because it gives you those little details, a sense of the way a place smells, an emotional sense of the place. So, I'll bring Graham Greene's The Quiet American if I'm going to Vietnam. It's good to feel romantic about a destination before you arrive.

Anthony Bourdain, US chef and travel host 

While there's a persistent stereotype of the geeky bookworm as some sort of homebody, some of the most joyful travelers I've met are also big fans of the written word. And it's not unusual that the question "What brings you here?" has an answer in the form of a title of a book. The combination of travel and fiction is particularly heady as wandering about satisfies the senses while the story gives the intellect a framework on which to build. Put the two together and they become synergistically satisfying. So today, to celebrate my first month as a blogger, I'd like to put together a double helping of happiness by combining two favorites: Spain and historical fiction.

Alhambra, from the Arabic al-hamra (the red), is named for its red walls.

Granada in the Andalusia province in the south of Spain has a rich and historic past. It is here that the Nasrids built the Alhambra, a palace of pools and gardens. King Boabdil eventually surrendered the palace to Isabel and Ferdinand.

The Constant Princess by Philippa Gregory is a novel that revolves around Catalina, the youngest daughter of Isabel and Ferdinand, Spain's Catholic Monarchs. The narrative begins during Catalina's childhood, when her parents ruled on horseback, and continues as  she sails to England to wed Arthur, Prince of Wales, and then eventually his brother Henry VIII. Compared to other novels by Philippa Gregory about the Plantagenets and the Tudors, this has received fairly little attention. (The Other Boleyn Girl was adapted into a Hollywood film starring Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson. The White Queen and two other novels about the Cousins' War, aka The War of the Roses, form the basis of a miniseries by Starz.) This is lamentable because of her novels that I've read, this one is the most descriptively lush. When Catalina and her family move into the Alhambra and again when she is homesick in Britain, descriptions of the beautiful rooms and gardens are woven into the narrative.

The Justice Gate, partially obscured by the a very tall tree. (Photo taken by an amateur. Lol!)

An excerpt from the novel reads:

"The Spanish family with their officers ahead and the royal guard behind, glorious as sultans, entered the fort through the enormous saquera tower known as the Justice Gate. As the shadow of the first arch of the tower fell on Isabella’s upturned face, the trumpeters played a great shout of defiance, like Joshua before the walls of Jericho, as if they would frighten away the lingering devils of the infidel. At once there was an echo to the blast of sound, a shuddering sigh, from everyone gathered inside the gateway, pressed back against the golden walls, the women half veiled in their robes, the men standing tall and proud and silent, watching, to see what the conquerors would do next. Catalina looked above the sea of heads and saw the flowing shapes of Arabic script engraved on the gleaming walls."

(To be continued.)