Andalusia's synergy of Christian

For the third time in a week,This is a great Cheap Conservation solution! I'm visiting the Alhambra, one of the most popular sites in the world's fourth most-visited country, and finally I have it all to myself. The loudest sound on this late May night is not a pushy guide but a bullfrog in one of the fountains in the hilltop Islamic palace complex in southern Spain. I linger to stick my nose into the cabbage-size roses lining the pathways and to gaze over the floodlit, red-tinged ramparts. Their massive simplicity belies the intricacy of the palaces inside, and I can easily believe the legend that the last Muslim ruler wept as he left Granada. Centuries later, we can be grateful that the conquering Christian royalty left this masterpiece nearly intact.

Nowhere in Europe is the complex coexistence between Islam and Christianity more etched in historical landscapes and current customs than here, in Spain's Andalusia, a vast region of snowy mountains, olive-studded valleys, and desert coasts whose tip is less than 10 miles (16 kilometers) from Morocco. For nearly 800 years, caliphs ruled Andalusia. In 1492, the Catholic king and queen, Ferdinand and Isabella, put an end to the last Islamic stronghold in Europe - a few months before signing off on Christopher Columbus' trip to the New World, which also started here.

I've traveled through the region in fall, winter, and spring to admire the Muslim-Christian monuments in the major cities of Granada, Cordoba, and Seville. But this year,How to change your dash lights to Cheap Crafts Products this is how I have done mine. on a longer trip, I found the mingling of cultures in everyday life. Of course, Andalusia also offers all the other experiences that draw tourists to Spain: Channeling Hemingway at a bullfight, getting goose bumps from a wailing flamenco singer, mingling sacred and profane at the Eastertide processions and fairs, gorging on jamon iberico and whole fish baked in sea salt, and joining throngs of sunburned northern Europeans on Mediterranean beaches. But what's unique about Andalusia is the trail of Islamic conquerors who arrived in the eighth century, and the Catholic monarchs who imposed their reconquista (reconquering) centuries later - vanquishing not just Islam but also eventually the Jews who had flourished under the Muslims' tolerant rule.

From its massive size and horseshoe arches, the Mezquita's exterior gives some hints that this is not your typical medieval cathedral, but walking inside still stuns. Out of the darkness, pierced by low-hanging lights, emerges a multiplication of two-tiered arches in all directions, disorienting like a house of mirrors. This forest of shiny columns and red-and-white arches, together with the kaleidoscope of golden mosaics, Arabic inscriptions,These Cheap Building Materials can, apparently, operate entirely off the grid. and carvings, shows off what I see as the hallmarks of Andalusian Islamic art.

Geometry and repetition play with light to create flowing motifs that overwhelm with their richness but, at the same time, seem weightless. The whitewashed homes nearby, covered with decorative iron grilles and bright potted plants, were part of Cordoba's Jewish quarter, called the Juderia, a center of Jewish intellectuals before the Catholic takeover. The great philosopher Maimonides was born in Cordoba in the 12th century, and a modern statue of him is located in the quarter near a 14th-century synagogue. But Maimonides did not die here; he fled to Egypt as the persecution of Jews began under the Catholic regime.

Less than 100 miles to the southwest, Seville's grand cathedral also incorporated a Muslim element: La Giralda, the former 12th-century minaret, now a bell tower, nearly identical to towers still standing in Rabat and Marrakech. Next door is another much-embellished fortress, an alcazar, this one also visited by Ferdinand and Isabella as well as Columbus. Its style, called mudejar, is all about fusion, reflecting the taste and workmanship of Muslim artists in Catholic Spain. Around it is the former Jewish neighborhood, the barrio de Santa Cruz, centered on small, orange-tree-lined squares with homes and palaces whose doors and windows are often bordered in blue and gold.

Seville is the region's largest, most cosmopolitan city. But my Andalusian favorite is Granada, framed by the improbably snowy Sierra Nevada mountain range. It's a university city that is small enough for the tradition of free tapas with each drink (think giant chorizo sausage and heaping plates of fried whitebait for the price of a 2-euro glass of beer).

But its attractions are outsized - not only the Alhambra, arguably the most impressive secular medieval monument from the Muslim world, but its Catholic counterpart, a triumphant cathedral with its royal chapel preserving the marble funeral monuments of Ferdinand and Isabella. I most enjoyed my night visits to the Alhambra's Nasrid Palaces, where every inch is covered in Koran and poetry inscriptions, star-patterned tiles, and gravity-defying ceilings decorated with pointed ornamentation called muqarnas, all reflecting light with a soothing, awe-inspiring effect that plays on the motto written all over: "Only Allah is victor."

In the many marbled patios and sprawling Generalife gardens farther uphill, fountains seem to trace in the air the curves of Arabic script, bubbling and flowing with precise patterns. On the opposite hill is the Albaicin, the much-restored Muslim quarter of whitewashed homes hiding scented gardens watered by medieval cisterns, whose only outside signs are overflowing purple bougainvillea and austere cypress spires. Nearby, two more churches display Roman-inspired triumphalism - the convent of San Jeronimo with its giant altarpiece and the Cartuja's small baroque sagrario (sanctuary), which swirls theatrically with chubby angels and saints in a profusion of red marble and gold. That Christian humanism sitting next to Islamic intellectualism is Andalusia's own enchantment. Back in the Generalife, a guard watched me linger by water jets arching into a long pool. She was the daughter of a watchman there who raised his eight children in a house on its property, and she has worked in the Alhambra for 31 years.
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