Praying in Lent and Easter 2021: 66, New Synagogue, Berlin

The cupola of the Neue Synagoge or New Synagogue dominates the streets in Spandau (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

During the Season of Easter this year, I am continuing my theme from Lent, taking some time each morning to reflect in these ways:

1, photographs of a church or place of worship that has been significant in my spiritual life;

2, the day’s Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel).

This week, I am offering photographs of synagogues that have welcomed me over the years and offered a place of prayer and reflection. My photographs this morning (23 April 2021) are from the Neue Synagoge or ‘New Synagogue’ on Oranienburger Straße, the main synagogue of the Jewish community in Berlin.

The New Synagogue narrowly escaped being destroyed on the night of Kristallnacht, or the ‘Night of Broken Glass.’ That night, 9/10 November 1938, is seen by many as the unofficial beginning of the Holocaust. But the New Synagogue was saved through the brave intervention of a district police chief, Wilhelm Krützfeld.

When the Neue Synagoge or New Synagogue opened in 1866, it was seen as an architectural masterpiece. The opening was such an important event that the attendance included Count Otto von Bismarck, soon to be the first chancellor of the German Empire.

The name ‘new’ refers to the reformed, modern rites and practices. The building was designed by Eduard Knoblauch and completed after his death by Friedrich August Stüller. It was designed in the Moorish style to resemble the Alhambra in Spain, and could hold 3,200 people.

The heavily damaged New Synagogue was essentially demolished in 1958, except for the front façade and entrance. The Centrum Judaicum Foundation opened there in 1988 and the rebuilt New Synagogue opened in 1995 as a museum, cultural centre and community offices.

The congregation in the New Synagogue today is Berlin’s only Masorti synagogue. Gesa Ederberg became the first female pulpit rabbi in Berlin in 2007 when she became the rabbi of the New Synagogue.

A plaque commemorates the centenary of the New Synagogue and recalls Kristallnacht (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 6: 52-59 (NRSVA):

52 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’ 53 So Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; 55 for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. 56 Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. 57 Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live for ever.’ 59 He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.

The façade of the New Synagogue survived Kristallnacht and World War II (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary:

The Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary today, Saint George’s Day (23 April 2021), invites us to pray:

Let us give thanks for the life of St George. May we join together in celebration with our brothers and sisters in Georgia, Ethiopia, England who hold him as their patron saint.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

The site of Berlin’s first synagogue at Heidereutergasse, dedicated in 1714 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

10 places I would miss if I could no longer see or travel … (2) Spain

Work continues on La Sagrada Família … it is expected to be completed in 2026 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I know I have been moaning about how many of my travel plans have been cancelled for the foreseeable future.

But, if I should face several weeks in self-isolation, I shall spend that time wisely, praying and keeping in touch with people through social media. In addition, there is a lot of books to read, a lot of music to listen to, a lot of games of chess to play, movies to catch up on, and there is a promise to complete some of the writing projects that have been on the ‘back boiler’ for some time.

I shall dream too, and in particular dream of travel.

Matador, the global media travel platform, sent out an encouraging email last week, saying, ‘You may not be traveling now. But you will travel again.’

It went on to say, ‘There are few things that collectively unite the world. Coronavirus has pushed us into one such moment. No one will exit this time period unchanged or unaffected. And we must do our part in this pandemic to prioritise and value our fellow humans around the world.

‘We believe travel is an essential human experience. We believe travel is the ultimate education, with the power to open minds, change perspectives, and defeat ignorance, racism, and prejudice. But we also believe that traveling should be approached responsibly, and we can’t in good faith tell you to go out into the world at this moment.

‘What we can tell you is that the day to venture, explore, and wander will come. We are already hungry for the sights of far-flung destinations, the comforting sound of laughter contrasted by unfamiliar languages, and the weight of a passport in our pocket.

‘This will pass, but we hope your appreciation for people will not. In real-time, we are witnessing the resiliency and strength of the human spirit, from the singing balconies of Italy to the healthcare workers putting the needs of others ahead of their own.

‘For the foreseeable future, we encourage you to do your part. That means distancing yourself from others as much as possible. And in the meantime, we will do our best to inform and entertain you with our most inspiring stories and videos. Our goal over the coming weeks is to connect you to the destinations outside your four walls – because we want to get you back to doing what you love and exploring soon.

‘Travel will be waiting for you: and will welcome you back like the old friend it is.’

In liturgical and preaching resources I posted last week on another site, I looked at last Sunday’s Gospel reading – the story of the man who is blind from birth and who is healed (John 9: 1-41) – and asked readers, ‘What would you miss if you were blind?’

In answer to my own question, in solidarity with people living in countries that are now in total lockdown or facing that prospect, and in tune with the idea that ‘travel is the ultimate education, with the power to open minds, change perspectives, and defeat ignorance, racism, and prejudice,’ I plan over the next few days or weeks to repost photographs of ten favourite places in a variety of countries. I began with Italy last Saturday [21 March 2020], this evening I continue with Spain, and in days or weeks to come I hope to post photographs from Greece, England, Portugal and other places.

In part I have been inspired by a posting last Tuesday from Jewish Heritage Europe (JHE), headed, ‘Social distancing or lockdown got you stuck at home? Take a virtual tour of some of Italy’s gorgeous historic Jewish heritage sites!’

The beach at La Carihuela … but there is more to the Costa del Sol than beach holidays (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

I began on Saturday with ten places in Italy I would miss in Italy if I could no longer travel or see. This evening I turn to Spain, another country in lockdown because of this pandemic.

When I first visited Spain, I had to get over two sets of prejudices: my images of Franco’s fascist Spain, and my own images of package-holiday Spain, created by Monty Python sketches about ‘terrible Torremolinos.’

But those images were taken apart on my first two visits to Spain: May Day in Madrid, and Holy Week and Easter in Málaga and La Carihuela, near Torremolinos.

I have been back to Spain regularly since, and last year I was there three times, including joining part of the pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostela. Click on the images to view them in full-screen mode. If social isolation is extended, I may even broaden my horizons.

1, The Alhambra

The Lion Fountain at the heart of Alhambra (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

2, Barcelona:

La Sagrada Família is Barcelona’s most famous building and Antoni Gaudí’s best-loved work (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

3, Córdoba:

The Mezquita-Catedral or Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba is one of the most accomplished examples of Moorish architecture in Spain (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

4, Granada:

Flamenco buskers in a square in Granada … Andrés Segovia said Granada is ‘where the Lord put the seed of music in my soul’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

5, Málaga:

A fountain in front of the cathedral in Málaga (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

6, Mijas:

Climbing through the whitewashed, cobbled streets of Mijas (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

7, Santiago de Compostella:

The High Altar in the cathedral in Santiago … pilgrims on the Camino and visitors climb behind the altar to embrace the silver mantle of the 13th century statue of Saint James (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

8, Seville:

In Los Baños de Doña María de Padilla in the Alcázar in Seville (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

9, Valencia:

The City of Arts and Sciences, designed by Santiago Calatrava and Félix Candela, is one of the ‘12 Treasures of Spain’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

10, Madrid:

Madrid has a rich architectural heritage (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

La Casas de las Juderias in Seville is like no other hotel I have stayed in and is orth returning to for its own sake, no matter where it is. I have been back to Spain again and again in recent years, and have become intrigued too by the Spain that is Sefarád (ספרד).

I have found to my delight that there is more to Spain than a package holiday on the beaches of the Costa del Sol, and I would miss not seeing more of it, as well as revisiting many of the places I now treasure.

I am finding my way along the Sephardic trails and pilgrim routes in Spain (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Next: Portugal.

The lost synagogues of the Sephardic Jewish community in Vienna

A 19th century silk Torah mantle and a Megillat Esther or Esther Scroll from the lost Sephardic synagogue in Vienna (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

One of the many synagogues lost during the horrors of Kristallnacht and the Holocaust following the Nazi annexation of Austria was the Sephardic synagogue in Vienna. With it, the story of the Sephardic community in Vienna and their unique traditions were destroyed.

However, some of this community story has been recovered and is retold in the exhibitions in the Jewish Museum in the Palais Eskeles on Dorotheergasse in Vienna. This story illustrates the diversity of the Jewish community in the Habsburg empire and also shows how changing circumstances, both political and social, offer opportunities and challenges.

The Ottoman Empire twice laid siege to Vienna, in 1528 and again in 1683. The defeat of the Turks in 1683 was an enormous, strategic setback for the Ottoman Empire, and its most disastrous defeat since its foundation four centuries earlier in 1299.

The Turkish defeat at Vienna became a turning point in history, and the Ottoman Turks ceased to be a threat to western Europe. In the war that continued until 1699, the Ottomans lost almost all of Hungary and Transylvania to the Habsburg Empire.

The Treaty of Passarowitz, signed at the end of Austro-Turkish war of 1716-1718 and the end of the Venetian-Turkish war of 1716-1718, marked the end of Ottoman westward expansion. The treaty gave Austria commercial privileges in the Ottoman Empire, and allowed some Ottoman subjects to settle and conduct business from then on in the lands of the Habsburg monarchs.

Although there was another war between Habsburg Austria and Ottoman Turkey that came to an end with the Treaty of Belgrade in 1739, the provisions of the Treaty of Passarowitz allowed a group of Sephardic Jews from the Ottoman Turkish lands to settle in Vienna.

As subjects of the Sultan, these Sephardic Jews were allowed to establish a legally recognised community in Vienna in the mid-18th century and they were permitted to build their own synagogue.

Paradoxically, the same right was denied to the Ashkenazi Jews from Central and East Europe who were living in Vienna. It was the misfortune of these Ashkenazi Jews in Vienna to be subjects of the Habsburg Empire. Until Joseph II issued an edict of toleration in 1782, they were not allowed to build their own synagogues, and many of them must have found it attractive to seek ‘Turkish papers.’

The Sephardic community in Vienna was established in the early 18th century by a group of Ottoman families led by Diego d’Aguillar. Many were the descendants of Sephardic families expelled from Spain and Portugal under the Inquisition in the 15th century; others were descended from families that had once lived in Italy; and in many cases they had fled cities and islands in Greece that the Venetians were forced to cede to the Ottomans under the terms of the treaty in 1718, such as Crete and the Peleponnese.

Two Ottoman-style finials for Torah scrolls survive from that time. They came from Jerusalem, which was part of the Ottoman Empire in the 18th century. Although it is not known when the Torah scrolls came to Vienna, the inscriptions on the finials say, ‘Jerusalem 1741.’

A silk Torah mantle from the 19th century and a Megillat Esther or Esther Scroll made in Vienna in 1844 also survive from the Sephardic community and are on display in the Jewish Museum.

Inside the ‘Turkish Temple,’ after a watercolour by Franz Reinhold (1890)

The first reference to a prayer house of the Turkish-Jewish or Sephardic community in Vienna is in 1778, although its location is unknown. The Sephardic prayer house on Upper Danube Street was destroyed by fire in 1824, and the community moved to the Great Mohrengasse.

As membership increased sharply, the community bought a plot of land at Fuhrmanngasse (today Zirkusgasse) 22 and began building a new prayer house that opened in 1868. However, major building defects soon appeared, and the building was demolished.

An elegant new Sephardic synagogue was built in the Moorish Revival style, inspired by the Alhambra in Spain. It was known as the ‘Turkish Temple’ and was built by the architect Hugo von Wiedenfeld (1852-1925) at Zirkusgasse in the Leopoldstadt district, between 1885 and 1887.

The synagogue was built between several neighbouring houses so that the entrance could only be reached through an atrium or vestibule. The main, square prayer room had an octagonal dome that was 12 metres high. This was supported by 17-metre high walls and was illuminated by skylights and lanterns.

The Aron ha-Kodesh or Holy Ark for the Torah scrolls, like most of the interior, was covered with marble or stucco, decorated and in gold or other colours. At the opposite end was the organ loft.

The prayer room had 314 seats on the ground floor, and galleries on three sides could accommodated another 360 people, with 250 standing spaces and 110 seats. In addition, a winter room on the first floor had 105 seats.

With new laws regulating the Jewish community in 1890, the Turkish Jewish community lost its independence and was to be incorporated into the larger Jewish community. After long negotiations, however, the Sephardic community was granted a degree of autonomy.

Rabbi Michael Papo from Sarajevo served the synagogue as a rabbi until 1918. After him, this position remained virtually vacant, and his son Manfred Papo served as a rabbi in the ‘Turkish Temple’ only sporadically. On the other hand, after World War I, Cantor Isidor Lewit, who created his own singing style based on Turkish-Sephardic melodies, made a significant contribution to the synagogue and community life.

It is said there were 94 synagogues and prayer houses in Vienna before the Nazis moved into Austria in 1938. The Sephardic synagogue at Zirkusgasse, like all other synagogues in Vienna – with the sole exception of the Stadttempel on Seitenstettengasse, built in 1824-1826 – was destroyed during the Holocaust.

Fifty years after the ‘Turkish Temple’ was destroyed in November 1938, the City of Vienna erected a commemorative plaque in 1988 to remember the Sephardic synagogue.

Two Ottoman-style Torah finials Jerusalem … once in the Sephardic synagogue in Vienna (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

This morning: The Stadttempel or City Synagogue at Seitenstettengasse 4, Vienna

The Synagogues of Prague, 5, The Spanish Synagogue

The Spanish Synagogue in Prague is a Moorish-style synagogue and one of the most beautiful in Europe (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

During my visit to Prague last week, I visited about half-a-dozen or so of the surviving synagogues in Josefov, the Jewish Quarter in the Old Town in the Czech capital.

Despite World War II, most of the significant historical Jewish buildings in Prague were saved from destruction, and they form the best-preserved complex of historical Jewish monuments in the whole of Europe.

The Jewish Quarter has six surviving synagogues, as well as the Jewish Ceremonial Hall and the Old Jewish Cemetery.

I visited the Spanish Synagogue in Dusni Street twice last week, once to see the synagogue itself, and later in the evening for a concert. Arabesques, gilt and polychrome motifs with a dazzling combination of rich green, blue and red hues make this Moorish-style synagogue one of the most beautiful in Europe. The interior of this 19th century creation is breath-taking, with its Torah ark and central dome as masterpieces of Spanish-inspired architecture.

Although the Spanish Synagogue is the newest synagogue in the Jewish Town, it stands on the site of the oldest synagogue in Prague, the ‘Old School’ or Altschule.

A small park with a statue by Jaroslav Róna of Prague’s best-known Jewish writer Franz Kafka lies between the synagogue and the neighbouring Church of Holy Spirit, first built in 1346 as part of a Benedictine convent.

The Old Synagogue or Altschule dated back to at least the 12th century, and its story was one of tragedy after tragedy. The victim of four fires, the synagogue was also damaged in the Easter pogrom in 1389. It was shut down by Emperor Leopold I in 1693 but opened its doors again in 1704, only to be pillaged in 1744.

During the 18th century, the Empress Maria Theresa let the synagogue fall into disrepair. But at the end of the 18th century, the Renaissance structure was transformed into a late Gothic style building.

The Old Synagogue was rebuilt five times from 1536 to 1837. When it was renovated in 1837, it became the first synagogue in Prague to offer reform services and the first in Bohemia to have an organ. Frantisek Skroup, who would later compose the Czechoslovak and now Czech national anthem, Where is my home?, was the organist and choirmaster there for almost 10 years, from 1836 to 1845.

Reticulated vaulting was added in the 1840s. But by then, the Altschule was too small for the needs of its congregation. They decided to demolish it in 1867 and replace with the new, Spanish Synagogue, built a year later.

The Spanish Synagogue was built in 1868 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

At first, the synagogue was known to German-speaking Jews in Prague as Geistgasse-Tempel, or ‘Temple in Holy Spirit Street,’ which seemed an incongruous combination of names until I stood by Kafka’s statue between the church and the synagogue.

Prague’s Jewish community has always been mainly Ashkenazic, so the name of the Spanish Synagogue does not refer to a Sephardic presence in Prague. Instead, the name refers to the Moorish revival style in its architectural design, inspired by the Alhambra and the art and architecture of the Arabic period in Spanish history.

A similar cultural influence shaped the design of the Neue Synagoge or ‘New Synagogue’ on Oranienburger Straße, the main synagogue of the Jewish community in Berlin, built in 1859-1866, with its domes and its exotic Moorish style that also reflect the Alhambra.

The Spanish Synagogue was designed by Vojtěch Ignác Ullmann, a renown architect of the Bohemian neo-renaissance, and the imposing interior and layout were created by Josef Niklas.

The interior of the Spanish synagogue was decorated in 1882-1893 to designs by Antonín Baum and Bedřich Münzberger (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

The synagogue is two storeys high, its ground plan is square and the main hall has a dome is surrounded by three built-in balconies, with an organ in the south balcony.

The synagogue is laid out in the Reform style. The bimah or reading platform is at the east end rather than the central space as in traditional synagogues or at the west wall as in Sephardic synagogues.

The monumental aron ha-kodesh or holy ark where the Torah scrolls are kept has no parochet or curtain today, and is designed in the style of a mihrab. Above, in the east wall, a great round stained-glass window with a central decoration of the six-sided Magen David (Star of David) was installed in 1882-1883.

The benches stand in rows, like pews in a church, instead of being arranged around the walls. They are not original, but come from a synagogue in Zruč nad Sázavou, a small town in Central Bohemia, south-east of Prague.

The most impressive decorative element in the synagogue is a gilded and multi-coloured parquet arabesque. The synagogue was decorated in 1882-1893 to the designs of Antonín Baum and Bedřich Münzberger, who were inspired by Arabic architecture and art.

The overpowering internal decoration is formed by low stucco of stylised and coloured Islamic motifs. Decorative elements were also applied to the doors, the organ and the wall panelling, and the windows are filled with tinted glass.

In 1935, a functionalistic building, designed by Karel Pecánek, was added to the synagogue. Until World War II, it served the Jewish Community as a hospital. The synagogue also used the space of the new building, which provides a vestibule, a shop, a winter oratory and additional exhibition space.

Since 1935, the appearance of the synagogue has remained essentially unchanged.

The appearance of the Spanish Synagogue has remained unchanged since 1935 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

The Nazis used this synagogue during World War II to catalogue and store property stolen from the Czech Jewish communities, including furniture from other synagogues.

Ten years after the war, the synagogue was returned to the Jewish Museum, it was fully restored inside in 1958-1959, and an exhibition of synagogue textiles opened there in 1960. By the 1970s, however, the building was neglected and it remained closed after 1982.

Restoration work resumed after the ‘Velvet Revolution,’ and when the synagogue was completely restored to its former beauty it re-opened in 1998.

This beautiful synagogue used today by Conservative Jewish community Bejt Praha. Kabbalat Shabbat is at 6 p.m. or 7 p.m., depending on the time of year, and welcomes all Jews, whether Reform, Orthodox or Secular.

The Spanish Synagogue is administered by the Jewish Museum in Prague. The exhibitions look at modern Jewish history in the Czech lands, from the reforms initiated by the Emperor Joseph II to the contribution of many Jewish people – including Franz Kafka – to Czech culture, literature, education, economy and science, as well as the traumatic events of the 20th century. It is also a regular venue for cultural events, including concerts and readings.



Previously: The Klausen Synagogue.

Next: The Pinkas Synagogue.

A first-time visit to Berlin for three days

Tucholskystraße is close to the New Synagogue in Berlin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford

I am in Berlin for a three-day city break until Friday.

I have passed through Frankfurt Airport many times in the past – the first time was in 1990 on my way back from South Africa, and the last two occasions were earlier this year, on my way to and from Thessaloniki.

But this is my first time to stay in Germany, and I arrived in Berlin on a flight from Dublin late yesterday evening. I am staying in an apartment on Tucholskystraße, within walking distance of many of the main sites in the centre of Berlin.

A photograph as I enter this apartment is a reminder that this street is named in honour of Kurt Tucholsky (1890-1935), a German-Jewish journalist, satirist, and writer who also wrote under the pseudonyms Kaspar Hauser, Peter Panter, Theobald Tiger and Ignaz Wrobel.

Tucholsky was born in Berlin-Moabit, moved to Paris in 1924 and then to Sweden in 1929. He was one of the most important journalists of the Weimar Republic. As a politically engaged journalist and co-editor of the weekly Die Weltbühne, he became a social critic in the tradition of Heinrich Heine.

He saw himself as a left-wing democrat and pacifist and warned against anti-democratic tendencies – above all in politics, the military and justice – and the threat of Nazism. His fears were confirmed when the Nazis came to power in 1933. He was one of the many writers whose work was banned that May as ‘un-German’ and burned. He was also one of the first authors and intellectuals to have his German citizenship revoked.

I am just around the corner from Oranienburger Straße and the Neue Synagoge or New Synagogue, built in 1859-1866 as the main synagogue of Berlin’s Jewish community. Because of its splendid eastern Moorish style and resemblance to the Alhambra, it is an important architectural building from mid-19th century Berlin.

I went out for dinner last night in Hummus and Friends, a Kosher and vegetarian restaurant on Oranienburger Straße, beside the Neue Synagoge. But so far I have seen little of Berlin. Over the next few days I hope to explore this city mainly on foot.

This morning [12 September 2018], after I plan to join a six-hour tour of Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, which is 35 km north of Berlin.

I have booked a visit to the Pergamon Museum tomorrow afternoon

On Friday [14 September], I am planning to join a four-hour walking tour of Jewish Berlin’s destruction and rebirth.

This area is in the former East Berlin, so my other plans probably include a walk along Unter den Linten and visits to the Brandbenburg Gate, Checkpoint Charlie and the Berlin Wall.

But I have never been to Berlin before, so I am open to new experiences and new sights.

Join me over these next few days, and seen what I see as I explore Berlin for the first time.

The Neue Synagoge or New Synagogue on Oranienburger Straße last night … it was built in 1859-1866 as the main synagogue of Berlin’s Jewish community (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The exotic story of the long-lost Turkish baths in Victorian Bray

The small shopping precinct on Quinsborough Road stands on the site of the once-exotic Turkish Baths built in Bray in 1859 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Patrick Comerford

My curiosity about the Victorian and Edwardian architectural heritage of Bray was stimulated at the weekend as I explored the history of the former Presbyterian manse on Quinsborough Road and the neighbouring church.

The manse and the church predate Quinsborough Road, which runs from the Main Street to the Railway Station, and which was laid out in 1854 by William Dargan, the great railway pioneer who had a vision of bringing the railway to Bray and laying out the town as a fashionable Victorian resort.

I returned to Bray on Sunday afternoon to explore the sites of two buildings that are part of the lost Victorian and Edwardian streetscape of Bray – the once elegant Turkish baths, and the long-lost International Hotel, both on Quinsborough Road.

A non-descript, late 20th century shopping centre on the north side of Quinsborough Road stands on the site of the former Victorian once elegant Turkish baths.

Turkish baths became a fashion in Victorian England and Ireland and were introduced to Ireland in the mid-19th century.

The Victorian baths were supposedly modelled on ancient Roman baths and relied on a flow of dry air rather than moist air in the series of progressively hotter rooms. The therapy was recommended for rheumatism, gout and tuberculosis.

The first Victorian Turkish bath in Ireland was opened at Saint Anne’s Hill, Blarney, Co Cork, in 1856 by Dr Richard Barter (1802-1870), a Cork-born and London-trained medical practitioner.

An interest in ‘Orientalism’ and a fascination with the exotic dimensions of the Turkish and Arab world had been stimulated in English-speaking Victorian fashionable society in the decades immediately after the publication of Washington Irving’s Tales of Alhambra in the mid-19th century.

It was first published in 1832 as The Alhambra: a series of tales and sketches of the Moors and Spaniards and a more popular version was published in 1851 as Tales of Alhambra.

Barter’s interest in Turkish baths was aroused by an account in The Pillars of Hercules (1850) by the Scottish diplomat David Urquhart. He decided to establish a Turkish bath at St Anne’s, Blarney, Co Cork, and invited Urquhart to supervise its construction. This was the first Turkish bath in the British Isles and the foundation stone was laid on 7 June 1856. That year too, Barter sent his architect nephew, also Richard Barter, to Rome in 1856 to study the ruins of old Roman baths.

Among the first people to enjoy Barter’s new baths in Blarney was the railway pioneer William Dargan (1799-1865) from Carlow, who was involved in laying out Bray as a fashionable seaside resort in north Co Wicklow, accessible by train from Dublin, long the lines of places such as Blackpool, Brighton, Eastbourne and Weston-super-Mare in England or Beaumaris and Llandudno in Wales.

Dargan had brought the railway to Bray, and in the 1850s he opened up Quinsborough Road to link the Main Street with his new railway station and his planned promenade along the seafront. At that time, he commissioned architects to build three new elegant terraces of house on Quinsborough Road, and invited Barter to build new Turkish baths on this new road.

The Turkish Baths in Bray … an image from DE Hefferman’s ‘Illustrated plan of Bray’ (1870)

The new Turkish Baths in Bray were ‘built under Dr Barter’s direction and ... under his management.’ Barter took out a patent for his system in 1859, and he opened his new Turkish baths in Bray that year.

The Turkish baths in Bray were built in an extravagant Moorish style and cost Dargan more than £10,000 to build. They were opened by the Earl of Meath, the principal landlord in Bray, on 15 October 1859.

The exterior was designed by Sir John Benson, but other architects involved in the project included Barter’s nephew Richard Barter (1824-1896) and Edmund William O’Kelly, who later built the International Hotel nearby.

Sir John Benson (1812-1874) was the Cork City Engineer and was the architect of the Great Industrial Exhibition on the lawn of Leinster House in Dublin in 1853. Benson worked closely with Dargan on pioneering the railways in Ireland, and was involved in railway building in the Cork area, including the Cork and Macroom Railway, the Rathkeale and Newcastle Railway, the Cork and Limerick Railway, the Cork and Passage Junction Railway, and the Cork and Kinsale Railway.

The interior was designed by Barter’s nephew, also Richard Barter (1824-1896), who designed similar establishments elsewhere in Ireland. Richard Barter is also said to have designed the external appearance of Turkish baths in Lincoln Place, Dublin, and similar establishments in other places in Ireland for Dargan.

The new building in Bray was 180 feet long and 70 feet wide, with a base of cut granite from the quarries in Dalkey. The walls were finished in red and white bricks, laid in an ornate chequered pattern, with tall minarets at the corners. According to Robert Wollaston, in a lecture in Cheltenham shortly after the baths opened, the outside appearance of the building was ‘Oriental.’

The main entrance was onto Quinsborough Road, with side entrances at either end to the east and west wings. At the back of the baths, a 70 ft ornamental chimney discharged the fumes from the coke-fed furnace.

Inside, there were several rooms adapted for different uses, with a grand entrance hall, and a dozen small apartments off the hall, each fitted as a dressing room with couches and divans. The ceilings were painted in arabesque patterns, and richly coloured with Turkish patterns of green red, and blue, and the windows were of coloured glass. At the centre there was a marble fountain surrounded by flowers, aquatic plants, ferns, shells and rock-work.

The pavements and tiles were made at Minton’s Works in Staffordshire and imitated the pavements of ancient baths. Attendants in Turkish costumes shampooed the bathers and offered coffee, sherbet, cigars and pipes.

The baths were open from 6 am to 11 pm, except on Sundays, when they were open for five hours. There was a choice of public or private bathing, at charges of two shillings or three shillings respectively. Shampooing cost an extra 6d.

Two months after his Turkish Baths opened in Bray, Dr Barter also opened Turkish baths in Lincoln Place, close to Trinity College, in February 1860. Barter soon other Turkish baths in other towns and cities, including Donegall Street and Arthur Street, Belfast, Grenville Place and Maylor Steet, Cork, Killarney, Charles Street, Limerick, Finisklin Road, Sligo and South Parade, Waterford. Like the baths in Bray, most were purpose-built and in what was described as a Moorish style.

In 1860, GR Powell, devoted several pages in The official railway handbook to Bray to his visit to Bray’s ‘improved Turkish, or new Irish baths’. But a controversy about the supposed benefits of the baths raged in the medical press from 1860 on.

But the Turkish baths in Bray were never a success. Summer attracted many visitors to Bray, but the resort attracted fewer visitors from Dublin in winter, and Dublin residents found Barter’s Turkish baths in Lincoln Place were more accessible.

In the winter of 1862, bathers in Bray were offered free entry, and by 1864 Dargan was trying unsuccessfully to sell the baths for £4,000.

Dargan died in 1865, and the baths were closed by 1867, when a new company converted the building into assembly rooms for concerts and other entertainment. The new premises opened in July 1867, and for a time also served as a Quaker meeting house. However, Dr Barter returned and reopened his Turkish baths in one of the wings, using some of the original small bath rooms and facilities.

The baths had closed again by 1869, and Barter died in 1870 at the age of 68. Some of his baths continued to offer for a few decades after his death, including those in Charles Street, Limerick, until 1886, and in Lincoln Place, Dublin, until 1899.

AS well as minarets, Barter’s baths in Lincoln Place, Dublin, also had a dome, and are referred to by James Joyce in Ulysses, where Leopold Bloom describes them as ‘the mosque of the baths.’ But these baths had closed in 1899, five years before Leopold Bloom’s odyssey, so Bloom could not have availed of their facilities.

By 1877, the Turkish baths in Bray were described as ‘a perfect eyesore.’ Around 1900 the exterior was rendered and the brick patterns were obliterated. In the early 20th century, the building it became a cinema, and part of the building was also used as a Quaker Meeting House.

By the time I first saw it as a teenager in the 1960s, the building was derelict. Schoolfriends tried to convince me it was Ireland’s first mosque. The building was vacant and crumbling by the time I was working for the Bray People in the mid-1970s. The building survived until 1980, when it was demolished to make way for a small shopping precinct.

The building that once housed Barter’s baths in Lincoln Place, Dublin, was used for a variety of commercial purposes until it was demolished in 1970.

During my two visits to Bray last weekend [12 and 14 August 2016], all the office space on the first floors appeared to be vacant, and the site has none of the exotic, oriental appeal I remember of Dr Barter’s former Turkish Baths.

An early image of the Turkish Baths on Quinsborough Road in Bray

Further reading:

Mary Davies, ‘A lost Victorian treasure – Bray’s Turkish Baths,’ Journal of the Bray Cualann Historical Society 5 (2004), pp 12-18.
Mary Davies, ‘Bray’s Turkish Baths,’ History Ireland, Vol 15, No 6, November-December 2007.
Mary Davies That favourite resort: the story of Bray, Co Wicklow (Bray, 2007).
Malcolm R Shifrin, ‘Victorian Turkish baths: their origin, development, and gradual decline.’

How a sun holiday in Spain became a challenge to long-held prejudices

There had to be more to Spain than high-rise hotels (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)
Patrick Comerford

For all my adult life I resisted the idea of going on a package holiday to Spain. For 40 years or more, I have travelled around the world for work and pleasure. But, apart from a weekend city break in Madrid five years ago – and that hardly counts – I had never been to Spain for a holiday.

You could say I did not know my Málaga from my Marbella, my Frigiliana from my Fuengirola, or the Costa Blanca from the Costa Brava and the Costa del Sol.

I took Spanish at school for five years, motivated perhaps by stories that it was an easier language to learn than French, German or Italian. I had inspiring teachers who introduced me to Spanish literature, from Miguel de Cervantes and Don Quixote to 20th century poets such as Federico García Lorca, and Spanish artists from Velázquez, Murillo and Goya to Miró, Picasso and Dalí.

Why, I even managed to pass Spanish at Intermediate and Leaving Certificate levels, although 45 years later I have managed to forget most of the Spanish I learned at school.

I think my reluctance to go on a package holiday to Spain was partly due to my own snobbery, disguised as political certitude. Spain was the land of Franco, Guernica and the garrotte; Spain was a land of brutality symbolised in the bullfight and the civil war chillingly depicted by George Orwell in Homage to Catalonia; Spain was the land of the Spanish inquisition and the brutal expulsion of Jews and Muslims; Spain, before the package holiday industry boomed, was popular with Irish people whose political sympathies on one hand were with the Blueshirts in the 1930s, or on the other hand with Frank Ryan who had defected to Nazi Germany.

Journalistic colleagues, including Paddy Woodworth, Colm Toibin and the late Jane Walker, chided and upbraided me for my inhibitions. But these prejudices persisted, reinforced by Monty Python sketches about Torremolinos, with half-built, high-rise hotels, Watney’s Red Barrel and pools with no water. Monty Python even reinforced my images with that sketch on the Spanish Inquisition.

Wanting more from holidays

Madrid was fine. I was there for a city break, enjoyed art galleries, museums and stately architecture, and experienced May Day.

But I knew Greek olives and olive oil were superior to Spanish olives and olive oil, and the same could be said about Greek and Spanish wine, coffee, music, poetry, mezzes or tapas, and even beaches. Zorba could out-dance Flamenco any evening. But Costa only meant coffee to me, and I had no intention of taking a Costa holiday. Holidays were not merely about sun, sand, sea and sangria. I wanted the sun, sand and sea, but in measured proportions that also took account of archaeological sites, cathedral architecture and other cultural interests.

Well, that is, until this Easter.

I have already experienced the beauty and rich spirituality of Orthodox Easter in Greece and in Cyprus. This year, Easter fell at the same time in the calendars of the Western and Eastern Churches. Easter in a Greek town or village seemed like a good idea, until we found most of the available flights and packages were priced exorbitantly – after all, every Greek wants to be at home for Easter.

Processing the Crucified Christ though the streets of La Carihuela (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)
A second option that came to mind was southern Italy, with the great Holy Week and Easter processions in places like Sicily. Once again, however, it was difficult to put together the right package, at the right time, at the right price.

The travel agent at Rathgar Travel in Dublin asked, ‘Why not Spain?’

‘Spain?’

I explained that this was supposed to be an Easter pilgrimage, with time for prayer, reflection and meditation … even if I did want to combine it with sunshine and time off, I had no intention of spending it in a high-rise, over-crowded sunny version of Blackpool or Clacton.

I recalled the Monty Python sketch and the fear that I might “sit next to a party of people from Rhyl who keep singing ‘Torremolinos, Torremolinos’.”

I was soon convinced of the wrongness of my prejudiced ways. Did I not know about Semana Santa and the processions with crosses and images of the Crucified Christ that take place in most villages and towns, even in the most built-up of areas?

Early on the morning on Maundy Thursday, I was on a flight to Málaga, about to spend a week on the Costa del Sol, in the Torremolinos pilloried over 40 years ago in that Monty Python sketch, staying in the Roc Lago Rojo Hotel in La Carihuela, once a picturesque fishing village on the edge of Torremolinos.

Bringing the sacred into the secular

Bringing the sacred to the secular and inviting the secular into the sacred on the beach in La Carihuela (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)
In the narrow streets between the hotel and the beach at La Carihuela, the tiny parish church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, squeezed in between the bars, the cafés and the souvenir shops, offered a warm welcome, so that most of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Day was spent following the local commemorations of Holy Week and Easter.

There was no great street parade there like the famous procession through the streets of Málaga, where confraternities of masked and hooded men carry larger-than-life statues shoulder high in penitence. But the simple foot washing ceremony at the Maundy Eucharist was all the more poignant for involving what may well have been the local butcher, baker and candlestick maker.

On the following morning, local people took it turn to carry the large, life-size image of the Crucified Christ through the streets of La Carihuela, stopping outside bars and cafés or at tiny corners abutted by small hotels and shops, and leading the prayers of the Good Friday Stations of the Cross.

At one stage, the cross was brought down through the sun beds on the beach to the shoreline, where it was raised aloft as the prayers continued. In a simple ceremony with mediaeval roots and modern interpretations, the message of Christ Crucified was being proclaimed to all without discrimination, the sacred was being brought into the secular, and the secular was invited to enter the sacred – an opportunity missed so often in many northern European societies.

The ruins of the Roman amphitheatre are a reminder of Málaga’s classical past (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)
Later that afternoon in Málaga, 15 km to the north, we visited the Cathedral, the Roman amphitheatre, the remains of the Moorish Alcazaba or fortress, the Church of Santiago, where Picasso was baptised, and the birthplace of Picasso, which is now a museum and educational foundation, the Fundación Picasso.

Spanish ladies in lace queuing for lunch in Málaga (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)
In the cathedral and the churches, many Spanish people were dressed formally as they came to pray quietly. But even the women who dress in formal black, with large, traditional lace headdresses, are “Ladies who Lunch” and they queued for lunch outside the restaurants without any hint of self-consciousness.

‘Music in my soul’

White-washed Mijas is a mountainside village that is like a balcony above the countryside of Andalucía (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)
We were reminded that Málaga, which still boasts of its Phoenician and Roman foundations, has roots dating back to classical times, that it was once a central meeting place of the worlds of Islam and Christianity, and that more recently it was the birthplace of one of the greatest figures in the world of Western art.

On Saturday, two of us caught a bus from Torremolinos to Fuengirola, and a second bus up to Mijas, a small town packed each day with day-trippers taking an Easter break from the brash resorts.

Mijas is a white-washed, mountainside village, 30 km south-west of Málaga and about 450 metres (about 1,500 feet) above sea level. The village is like a balcony looking out across the countryside of Andalucía and down onto Fuengirola and the coastal resorts of the Costa del Sol.

Lighting the Paschal Candle in La Carihuela (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)
Early on Easter morning, while it was still dark, we left our hotel room and walked through the narrow, silent, deserted streets of La Carihuela to wait on the beach for the sunrise. A few early risers were already jogging along the promenade, and one or two lone shore anglers were walking up and down the shoreline, perhaps hoping to catch some fish for breakfast. But we thought about the women who rose early before dawn to visit the tomb, and the disciples by the shore in Galilee, and how they found that Christ is Risen.

Waiting for the sunrise before dawn on Easter morning (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

In My Fair Lady, Professor Higgins and Colonel Pickering are successful in teaching Eliza Doolittle that “the Rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.” The truth is, however, very different: Spanish rain falls mainly in the northern mountains. But still, much of our Sunday and all of our Monday were washed out. When we ventured out for a walk on the beach or for a coffee we found how heavy Spanish rain can be, even on the Costa del Sol.

The rain in Spain does not stay mainly in the plain (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)
With the Easter celebrations over, we took a two-hour bus journey on Tuesday through the countryside of Andalucía to the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains to visit Granada and Alhambra.

The Spanish composer Andrés Segovia once described Granada as “a place of dreams where the Lord put the seed of music in my soul.”

The buildings and the gardens of Alhambra are designed to reflect the very beauty of Paradise (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)
The Alhambra dates from 889, but it eventually fell into disrepair and was damaged by neglect, plunder, earthquakes and even an attempt by Napoleon’s army to blow the place up. It was almost forgotten until it was romanticised in 1832 by Washington Irving (1783-1859) in his Tales of the Alhambra. The new attention brought restoration, so that today this is one of Spain’s major tourist attractions and a Unesco World Heritage Site.

The Palace of Alhambra is a reminder of almost eight centuries of Islamic presence (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

The Lion Fountain at the heart of Alhambra (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)
The buildings and the gardens of Alhambra are designed to reflect the very beauty of Paradise, with gardens, fountains, streams, a palace, and a mosque, all within an imposing fortress wall, flanked by 13 massive towers. We strolled through the gardens, the secluded courtyards, gardens, patios and villas where the sultans of Granada could escape from the place intrigues and politics in their search for tranquility.

The Palace of Alhambra, with its creative architectural combination of space, light, water and decoration, is one of the most intriguing works left behind in Spain after almost eight centuries of Islamic presence in the Iberian Peninsula.

Flamenco buskers in a square in Granada … Andrés Segovia said Granada is “where the Lord put the seed of music in my soul.” (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Walking through the narrow streets of Granada (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)
Later in the week, we experienced another intriguing presence in Spain when we visited Gibraltar. But Gibraltar is a story for another day.

The Spanish countryside below the Sierra Nevada mountains (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)
We found plenty of time for walks on the beach, and found it takes little time to learn to enjoy Spanish food and wine. We never got to see Seville or Cordoba, nor did we explore the possibility of crossing to Morocco. But after a week, some of that spoken Spanish I had learned 45 to 50 years ago was beginning to come back ... sometimes at unexpected moments. And I realised there is more to Spain than sun, sand, sea and sangria.

There is more to Spain than sun, sand, sea and sangria (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)
Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism, Liturgy and Church History, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. This essay and these photographs were first published in June 2014 in the Church Review (Dublin and Glendalough) and the Diocesan Magazine (Cashel, Ferns and Ossory).

In the courts of the Gardens of Paradise and in the city of dreams and music

Looking out from a window in Alhambra across the city of Granada (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Patrick Comerford

One day in mid-week, before dawn broke, I took a two-hour journey by bus from the coast at Torremolios to the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, 738 metres above sea level, to see the city of Granada and the Moorish citadel and palace at Alhambra.

The city of Granada was once described by the composer Andrés Segovia as “a place of dreams where the Lord put the seed of music in my soul.”

A Flamenco busker on the Mirador de San Nicolás on hill-top of Albayzin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

After breakfast along the way, our first stop was at the Mirador de San Nicolás in one of the highest points of the old hill-top quarters of Albayzin, for the spectacular views across the city and the Darro valley, to the Alhambra and the Generalife Gardens to the south, with the Sierra Nevada in the background.

We climbed through the sloping, narrow cobbled streets of the Albayzin, paved with river stones, to the square crammed with tourists catching their first glimpse of Alhambra. There, as we stood and sat in wonder, we were entertained by a pair of busking Andalucían gypsies – a Flamenco guitarist and dancer.

We retuned through the university city of Granada to reach the Alhambra, the Generalife and the Gardens.

The Alhambra has survived neglect, plunder, earthquakes and explosives (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014

The Alhambra dates from 889, but it was thoroughly rebuilt in the mid-11th century by Mohammed ben Al-Ahmar, the Moorish King of Granada who built the palace and walls. Later it was turned into a royal palace by Yusuf I, Sultan of Granada, in 1333. The palaces were built for the Nasrid dynasty, the last Muslim emirs in Spain, and were finally surrendered to Spain’s “Catholic Monarchs”, Ferdinand and Isabella, in 1492.

The Emperor Charles V built a new palace on the site in 1527, but eventually the whole place fell into disrepair, damaged by neglect, plunder, earthquakes and even an attempt by Napoleon’s army to blow the place up.

The Alhambra was rediscovered in the 19th century by writers and travellers, and was romanticised in 1832 by Washington Irving (1783-1859) in his Tales of the Alhambra – he also wrote The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip van Winkle. The new attention created an interest in restoration, and today this is one of Spain’s major tourist attractions and a Unesco World Heritage Site.

The gardens of Alhambra are designed to reflect the beauty of Paradise (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Throughout the Alhambra, the buildings and the gardens are designed to reflect the very beauty of Paradise, with gardens, fountains, streams, a palace, and a mosque, all within an imposing fortress wall, flanked by 13 massive towers.

We made our way first through the gardens to the Generalife (Jennat al Arif, “The Garden of Lofty Paradise”), with its secluded courtyards, gardens, patios and villas, protected by towers fortifications, underground cisterns, stables and the former garrison. Here the sultans of Granada could escape from the palace intrigues in the Alhambra and the busy life of the city in their search for tranquillity.

But the main part of the complex is the Palace of Alhambra, with its creative architectural combination of space, light, water and decoration to create one of the most intriguing works left behind in Spain after almost eight centuries of Islamic presence in the Iberian Peninsula.

The palace buildings include the rooms opening onto central courts, squares and rooms connected with each other by smaller chambers, passages, arches and colonnaded and pillared arcades, fountains with running water, pools designed to reflect the buildings, and a creative use of blue, red, and a golden yellow throughout.

The rich arabesque decorations of the interior of the Alhambra (Photograph: Patrock Comerford, 2014)

The buildings are covered with calligraphic inscriptions and sacred arabesque and geometrical patterns, the walls are panelled with painted tiles, and the ceilings are decorated with stalactites.

Alhambra was a castle, a palace and a courtly residence. The royal complex incorporates three main parts: the Mexuar, the Serallo and the Harem. The Mexuar houses the functional areas for business and administration. The ceilings and floors are made of dark wood and are in sharp contrast to the white, plaster walls. The Serallo, built in the 14th century, contains the Patio de los Arrayanes (Court of the Myrtles). The Harem is elaborately decorated and contains the living quarters for the wives and mistresses of the monarchs.

The large Hall of the Ambassadors was the grand reception room with the throne of the sultan. Later, it was here that Christopher Columbus received formal support from Isabel and Ferdinand for his project to sail to the New World.

The Court of the Lions, with the Fountain of Lions at its centre where the alabaster basin is supported by 12 marble whitte lions (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

A low gallery supported on 124 white marble columns surrounds the Court of the Lions. The Fountain of Lions in the centre of the court is an alabaster basin supported by the figures of 12 lions in white marble, representing strength, power, and sovereignty. It is said that each hour, one lion would produce water from its mouth.

Muhammad XII of Granada, known as Boabdil, was the 22nd and last Sultan of Granda. He surrendered of Granada, the last Muslim-ruled city in Spain, in 1492 without the Alhambra itself being attacked, to the forces of the Spain’s “Catholic monarchs,” King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile.

When Boabdil burst into tears after his surrender at Santa Fe, burst into tears, his mother reproached him, saying: “You weep like a woman for what you couldst not defend as a man.”

Inside the Palace of Charles V on the slopes of Alhambra (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

The Alhambra reflects the culture of the last centuries of the Moorish rule of al-Andalus, reduced to the tiny Nasrid Emirate of Granada. It is a testament to Moorish culture in Spain and the skills of Muslim, Jewish, and Christian artisans, craftsmen, and builders of the era. It remains a captivating example of Muslim art and architecture in its final European stages, relatively uninfluenced by Byzantine styles.

On the way back down the slopes, we stopped briefly to visit the Palace of Charles V, a 16th century Renaissance palace that was still awaiting completion when it was abandoned.

From the Alhambra we made our way back down to the city of Granada, and as we sat out for lunch in a café in the Plaza Bib-Rambla, we were entertained once again by a busking Flamenco troupe that included a guitarist, a singer and two dancers.

The Royal Chapel was built over the former terrace of Granada’s Grand Mosque (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

From there we walked through the narrow side streets to the Capilla Real or Royal Chapel of Granada. After they had taken Granada, Ferdinand and Isabella chose the city as their burial place, and the Royal Chapel was built over the former terrace of Granada’s Grand Mosque.

Spanish visitors and tourists alike queue to enter the crypt where the Catholic Monarchs, are buried beneath their effigies, alongside their daughter Juana la Loca (“the Mad”) and her husband Felipe el Hermoso (“the Fair”).

Outside the doors of the Royal Chapel, we peered into the Palazzo de la Madraza, originally an Islamic university and now part of the University of Granada.

The lengthy queues precluded a visit to the neighbouring cathedral, built on the very site of the Nasrid Grand Mosque shortly after Granada was taken by Ferdinand and Isabella. But from the plaza in front we admired its architectural styles. The cathedral is modelled in the Gothic style of the Cathedral of Toledo, but was completed in a Renaissance style, with five naves instead of the usual three and later Baroque additions.

We also stepped inside the Ayuntamiento or City Hall facing onto Plaza de Carmen. The first things the visitor sees are large statues of Ferdinand and Isabel. But this building is designed in a distinctively Moorish style, with an elaborately carved entrance, an ornate stairway and a central in Moorish-style courtyard with a fountain.

Flamenco buskers in the Plaza Bib-Rambla (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

There was time for one last double espresso in one of the many cafés on Plaza de Mariana Pineda. This one of Granada’s many pretty squares and is named in honour of Mariana de Pineda y Muñoz (1804-1831), a revolutionary heroine from Granada who is generally known as Mariana Pineda.

Mariana married a revolutionary army officer, but by the age of 18 she was widowed in with two children. In 1828 she aided a jail break by condemned revolutionaries. When a search of her house uncovered a flag emblazoned with the slogan “Equality, Freedom and Law,” Mariana was arrested and charged with conspiracy. After a failed escape attempt, she was publicly executed by the garrotte on 26 May 1831.

The playwright Federico García Lorca based his play Mariana Pineda on her story, and she became a popular figure in the resistance to Franco’s regime.

From this “place of dreams” that could “put the seed of music in [your] soul” we returned through the countryside of Andalucía, beneath the slopes of the Sierra Nevada to the Torremolinos and the beaches of the Costa del Sol.

The countryside in Andalucía on the return journey from Granada and the Alhambra to Torremolinos (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)