Instead of the Alhambra: the other Andalusia and Spain's lesser-known Islamic heritage
An alternative to Granada's Alhambra: Medina Azahara, Almería, the Aljafería and the andalusí towns where you can experience Islamic art without the queues.
Foto: Sabrina Campagna Live Music Photographer (CC BY 4.0) — Flickr
Granada's Alhambra draws more than two million visitors a year, and tickets for the Nasrid Palaces sell out weeks in advance, with timed entry slots that leave you only a few minutes in each room. If you're looking for an alternative to Granada's Alhambra, the good news is that al-Andalus left palaces, fortresses and garden-cities all across Spain where Islamic art speaks with the same intensity, but without rationed entry slots. Here's where to go, starting right in Andalusia.
In Andalusia
Just 7 km from Córdoba stands Medina Azahara (Madinat al-Zahra), the palace-city that caliph Abd al-Rahman III began building in 936 as the capital of the Caliphate. Sacked barely seventy years later during the civil war and then quarried for stone, it lay buried for nearly a thousand years. It is Spain's largest archaeological site (a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2018), and only about 10% of it has been excavated: what you see is pure caliphal urban planning, never overwritten. This is where the symmetrical garden courtyards were born, the ancestors of the riads that the Alhambra would inherit; entry is free for EU citizens and you reach it by shuttle from the museum in the valley below. Pair it with the Mezquita and you'll understand al-Andalus better than you would queuing in Granada.
On the coast, the Alcazaba of Almería is, after the Alhambra, the largest Muslim structure on the peninsula: 1,430 metres of walls and three enclosures rising sheer above the sea, founded — again — by Abd al-Rahman III. A filming location for "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" and "Game of Thrones," it remains surprisingly quiet. Further west, the Alcazaba of Málaga and the Arab baths of Ronda round out an Andalusian itinerary that ignores the Granada crowds entirely.
Beyond Andalusia
Islamic Spain, however, doesn't end in Andalusia. In Zaragoza, the Aljafería is the northernmost Islamic palace in Europe and the only great building of the taifa period still standing: built in the 11th century by the Hudid king al-Muqtadir as a pleasure residence, it preserves polylobed arches, a courtyard with reflecting pools and a mihrab with a horseshoe arch inspired by Córdoba. From here you climb towards Teruel for Albarracín: the very name comes from the Berber Banu Razin, who ruled a small taifa here, and that labyrinth of earth-pink lanes above the Guadalaviar is, ultimately, their urban legacy.
Moving towards La Mancha, Cuenca was the andalusí Kunka, a Muslim stronghold until the Christian conquest of 1177: the houses hanging over the precipice occupy the spur its defenders had chosen for its impregnability. The same frontier logic explains Maderuelo, a walled town on the Segovian Duero, one of the lines where Christians and Muslims fought over the territory for centuries.
In Catalonia the andalusí trace is rarer but intense. Siurana, a balcony of red rock above the Priorat, was the last Catalan Muslim bastion: the castle of Hisn Xibrana, on a crag at 737 metres, fell only in 1153 after a long siege by starvation, five years after Tortosa. Today it's a mecca for climbers, but its inaccessible profile still explains why it held out so long. In Girona, the Banys Àrabs (actually Romanesque, from 1194, dubbed "Arab" only in the 19th century) show how deeply andalusí aesthetics had permeated the peninsula.
In the great cities
To close the journey, it's worth pausing in the great cities with a different eye. In Madrid the La Latina district preserves the memory of the old morería: hidden there is the Jardín del Príncipe de Anglona, the walled garden of the Plaza de la Paja, while on the eastern edge of the capital El Capricho offers the best-kept historic garden in the city. In Barcelona, in the Barri Gòtic, the four columns of the Temple of Augustus recall the Roman layer beneath everything, and above the harbour the cactus garden of Montjuïc delivers the view you'd expect from a Moorish mirador. Pushing to the northwest, finally, Las Médulas closes the circle on the many layered Spains, far beyond the postcard of the Alhambra.
When to go
The best time is spring and early autumn: the Andalusian and Aragonese interior often tops 40 degrees at the height of summer, and it's precisely in the hot months that the best-known monuments are also the most crowded.
Practical guides for Alba
Practical info
When is the best time to visit Instead of the Alhambra?
The recommended time is April, May, September and October, when it is less crowded.
Where is Instead of the Alhambra?
Instead of the Alhambra is located in Italy.
