So I admit it: I was one of those who shed a tear when Penélope Cruz sang Volver in the Almodóvar film. Of course, that voice isn’t the voice of Cruz. It’s the voice of Estrella Morente.

Morente grew up the daughter of flamenco parents near the Andalusian city of Granada whence flamenco originates. I first came across her following the release of her debut album Mi Cante Y Un Poema. She possesses a voice full of geography, passion and experience, yet her biography has it that she’s younger than me.

During her concert at the Ancienne Belgique, the audience was first transfixed, then on its feet within just a few songs. A completely automatic process. Such was the power and goodwill of Morente and her troupe of musicians.

Toledo: Puerta del Reloj

The city retains much of its ancient character, thanks in no small part to its status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In common with the other great cities of old al-Andalus Toledo has a long history of coexistence marked by distinct ruling periods.

Muslims were here. Jews were here. Catholics were here. Catholics are still here. Toledo is modern Spain’s capital of Catholicism, a jumble of ancient houses clinging together like prayer boxes on top of a hill carved by a tight meander of the Tajo river.

Crenellated battlements surround the city, a fading, golden girdle that still protects against the breaches of invasion and overdevelopment.

Inside the walls, all is quiet. Starchy food smells escape from ornate, wooden shutters. Unfamiliar liquids escape the heat, running between the paving stones and into odourous drains. A closed knife shop. A closed marzipan shop. Another close knife shop, exactly like the one before.

Inside the cathedral, leaving behind the crass crowds. No cameras, no filming, no smoking, no dogs, no mobile telephones. No common objects in this magnificent edifice built by the sacrifices of common people. The vestments and mitres of generations of bishops, hermetically sealed in chapelled cabinets. Their portraits – some more successful than others – are panel painted in another chapel.

Breathe easier outside. Play hide and seek with the bright sun. Breathe in and slip into the close, narrow alleys. Breathe out in the broad plazas. Coming, ready or not.

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Toledo

A former capital of Spain and now capital of Castilla-La Mancha, Toledo is the city of swords, religion and marzipan.

Walking in Toledo

Larger map of this route

Using the train station as a start and finish point, the map covers most of Toledo’s points of interest, some of which are marked for reference.

Jaume I of Aragó was one of Barcelona’s many notable figures. Descended from French and Byzantine nobility, his exotic origins were matched by an illustrious childhood spent in the thick of the Occitan struggles.

The thirteenth was the century in Europe that instigated the beginnings of a consolidation of power from which Jaume would personally profit and which in the long term would synthesise many of the nation states we know today.

During his reign however, Jaume strived hard for independence. His county of Barcelona, for example, which had been endowed four centuries earlier by Charlemagne, he divested properly and finally from France.

He also invaded the Balearics, wresting control from the Moorish taifas, and established a close relationship between the islands and the mainland that endures today. Power gains over the Moors characterised the remainder of Jaume’s reign as he pushed them ever further into Andalusia.

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Barcelona

The Catalonian capital is full of quirks: a city that's noisy, bright and always in a hurry to be somewhere.

Larger Map at GoogleMaps

History piled on top of history

Step out of the metro station that carries his name, slip into the streets nearby and perhaps you can imagine how Jaume’s Barcelona appeared…

The tall Roman city walls cast long shadows over the rooftops of markets, workshops and houses jumbled together and scored by narrow alleyways.

There might be the distant chant of Jewish prayer. A synogogue stands taller, its additional height permitted by Jaume. Those who come here are sometimes persecuted yet generally tolerated, though not for much longer.

Meanwhile the masons are working on the lower walls of the new cathedral. As their mallets hammer out time, they’ll be finished – two hundred years hence – right when the Catholic Kings ride into Granada and Columbus discovers the New World.

Every building screens off or builds on some already forgotten landmark. History piled on top of history. Daylight gets in between the cracks for only an hour or two each day, but at least the suffering heat does not.

Eccentrics welcome

Barcelona has had its fair share of eccentrics.

Picasso and Miró were lauded, Dalí was banned and Gaudí lambasted.

And whilst the artists all died famous and respected, the architect went almost unrecognised, run over by a tram before the city suddenly appreciated his genius.

It’s not difficult to understand Barcelona’s earlier allergic reactions. Not only did Gaudí present something completely unprecedented, he often freely mixed it with architectural styles more rigidly defined by time and example.

Sagrada Família perfectly embodies this fervent eclecticism. Still under construction today and planned rather optimistically for completion in 2026 (the centenary of Gaudi’s death), the church remains enigmatically bizarre even to modern tastes. It is nevertheless the very symbol of this city now, released from the strictures of Franco and a degraded regional economy, a time in which aesthetically anything goes.

Knowing me, knowing you

This visit did not reveal the cosy, colourful Barcelona of my imagination. That was the Barcelona of my student years, a kind of Pot Luck meets Together, open and accessible at the other end of a rainbow, by a flight I could never seem to afford – if only because the destination never existed.

Everything there was incense sticks and painted furniture. A quick-tempered latina with whom to fall in and out of love by the hours on a clock. Orwell and Hemingway smoking cigars in an empty lobby. Gossiping starlings and morning laundry, the feverish, silent repose of hot afternoons and all-night festas in a barri I could call my own.

That’s not Barcelona. That studenty, too-good-to-be-true idyll, you break up with it and of course it gets on perfectly fine without you.

The clock strikes midday on your affair with the tempestuous latina of your post-pubescent imagination. And you wake up in the thick heat with a headache and that maddening truth, the one that never comes out right: it’s not you, it’s me…

Containing some 500,00 inhabitants, tenth century Córdoba was home to Europe’s largest urban population.

The Caliphate, a dynasty of Ummayad rulers exiled from their Syrian homelands, held sway over rich hinterlands that supported first the consolidation, then expansion of their influence across al-Andalus and the Maghreb.

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Córdoba

Home to the grand Caliphate, tenth century Córdoba was the splendid home of half a million residents, the largest city in Europe and possibly the world.

A legacy of learning

Whilst its scientific and cultural exploits were renowned at the time, the activities sponsored and hosted by the Caliphate remain one of our strongest links between the ancient and modern worlds.

Some of the greatest works of history, philosophy, linguistics, science and medicine were restored and translated, forming a 400,000 volume library in this singular capital of learning.

War and peace

Under the Caliphate, it is generally considered that Jews, Christians and Muslims lived in peace and relative harmony in Córdoba during this period. This assertion, based as it is on the undeniable fact that so much was achieved academically, has been challenged in recent times.

What is more certain is that, if within the walls of Córdoba there pervaded the conditions for peaceful commerce and congress, then outside the Caliphate waged war against its enemies with considerable frequency.

Mezquita de Córdoba

Córdoba’s finest symbol of the Muslim era is the Mezquita, whose state of preservation is little short of extraordinary.

Built on the site of a Visigothic Christian church from 784AD onwards, the Mezquita remains one of the largest mosques in the world.

Outside the main building containing the mihrab and musalla (prayer hall), the beautiful courtyard includes an orangery added in 987AD and several fountains, flanked by a portico probably built during a later period.

In the bright light of a spring morning, the bell tower – which encases the former minaret of the mosque – shines golden against an azure sky, casting an ever-shortening shadow over the cobbles below.

Entering the musalla, it takes a moment to become accustomed to the dim light. Then at once, the view is filled with the distinctive, alternating red and white brick arches.

The pattern demands so much attention that the viewer tends to be deterred from acquiring a proper sense of scale about the building, a curious effect that applies equally to photographs of the same.

The mihrab unusually faces south, instead of southeast in the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca. There are several extant theories that seek to explain this anomaly, not least one that describes the Caliphate’s intent to avoid facing the region from whence it came in exile. Whether out of defiance or shame, the origin of the motive is unclear.

The Caliphate eventually weakened and dissolved into a collection of emirates (taifas) during the eleventh century. Once the Christian Reconquista gathered momentum two hundred years later, it would be only a matter of time before Córdoba fell. After 1236, a succession of Christian features was appended to the (re)consecrated Mezquita with often incongruous results.

Today the city of Córdoba is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

It’s late morning and we’re climbing a steep street out of the new city. The white buildings of the venerable Albayzín quarter are dazzling in the spring sunlight. These narrow streets are full of silence and long shadows where once there were the sounds of commerce and prayer.

It’s still March and until an hour or so ago, when we were across the valley at the Alhambra, it was still cool and dewy.

Taking a drink of water at the top of the hill, I wonder what it must be like here in August: I have never visited Spain in the high summer months. At such times, life is something that happens indoors and at night.

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Granada

Capital of Andalusia and former seat of the Islamic Nasrid kingdom, the venerable city of Granada is full of history.

Gazing across at the Alhambra, I try to imagine how it must have been during the last years of the Emirate.

From here, the gulf of time represented by the ravine between us, it’s tempting to think of the Generalife as an exquisite pearl in a hard stone shell: a place of splendid isolation with the sultan as a grand pariah at its centre.

Certainly, the Nasrids would have noted the erosion of influence and the dwindling of fortunes, but it would be two full centuries before the dynasty ended, during which time alliances were made and peace maintained.

The Alhambra complex was built during the fourteenth century, work having started soon after Ibn Nasr had been forced out of Jaén by the Spanish. The alcazaba, a fortified outer citadel, masks off the inner buildings set apart from which is the Generalife (Jannat al-’Arif), the summer palace of the Nasrids.

Everywhere are defining examples of the styles and motifs familiar to Al-Andalus: intricate arabesques repeating to infinity, angular kufic scripts and muqarnas and mocárabes, golden and densely detailed. Beyond, pools reflect light and symmetry and gardens enhance the richness of the place.

Also inside the walls of the citadel stands Charles V’s comparatively dull palace with its circular inner courtyard. Part of an unfinished project that cleared certain central portions of the original layout, the palace is perhaps symbolic of the subsequent Catholic kings’ disdain of history, during which time much damage was done to the structures of the Alhambra.

Today we are fortunate that so much of the complex is still standing and in relatively good condition.

The Alhambra is Spain’s most visited monument and getting tickets can be difficult, so visitors are recommended to book online well in advance.

El Torcal is a nature reserve west of the Poniente and above the town of Antequera. It is one of Europe’s most outstanding examples of Karst topography.

There are three trails from which visitors can choose. J and I arrived relatively early on a very busy day. It was actually hard to leave the park with all the vehicles heading in.

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El Torcal and Iznajar

One of Europe's most extraordinary examples of Karst topography (look it up!), the El Torcal nature preserve divides Málaga and Antequera in rugged relief.

Illuminated by the sunlight of southernmost Spain are the last traces of a great state whose grandeur and importance seem disproportionate to its lack of prominence in European history.

Perhaps the footnote status of Al-Andalus is partly due to being sandwiched between Roman civilisation and the discovery of the “New” World. Still more likely is that this near-mythical tale of a golden era of Muslim rule might otherwise take the polish off the Catholic resurgence that brought about the former’s end.

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Andalusia

Bright light on peaceful hillsides, the cool springs of southern Spain: a self-contained world with no email, websites or commuting.

The coming of the Ummayads

Inspired by the example of the prophet Muhammad, the Ummayad Caliphs rapidly expanded into territories far beyond their native Syria. In April 711, an Ummayad army under the command of Tariq ibn Ziyad landed at Gibraltar (“Rock of Tariq” = “Gibel al Tariq” = “Gibraltar”). Within eight years, the Ummayad army had taken possession of lands beyond the Pyrennees, after which its progress was finally checked.

There followed half a millenium of Muslim rule. It was a time of enlightenment, of civilised life and – to some extent at least – of cultural and religious tolerance.

However, the course of empire never runs smoothly, and whilst the Ummayads gained Al-Andalus, they would quickly lose every other territory in their power. A revolt by the rival Abbasid family unseated them from their Syrian seat in 750, leaving surviving exile Abd ar-Rahman I to fight his way to pre-eminence in Al-Andalus.

Behind him, the Abbasids of Baghdad now planned his downfall from newly-won Africa, but the emboldened Ummayad routed the force sent to defeat him and planned to take Baghdad. Revolts preoccupied Abd ar-Rahman I and his plans were never realised. In later generations, the Ummayad Emirs and Caliphs of Córdoba sought to outdo Baghdad’s splendour instead.

From Córdoba to Granada

While Abd ar-Rahman I was concerned with consolidating the strength of the nascent Emirate at Córdoba, it would be a further two centuries before successor Abd ar-Rahman III could expand it. Swelled by victories against the Abbasids and Fatimids in North Africa, and in open defiance of a weakened Baghdad, he declared himself Caliph of Córdoba in 929.

The Caliphate dwarfed its neighbours, a collection of struggling, minor Catholic kingdoms, but spared by diplomacy and allowed to thrive on trade relations these kingdoms would not remain feeble for long. In the meantime, the threat of civil war had begun to loom over the Caliphate.

In the early decades of the 11th century, the disastrous outcome of this internal strife was the division of the Caliphate’s lands into a series of smaller states, each of which were more manageable targets for the increasingly boisterous and ideologically united Christian crowns. To defend themselves, these taifa kingdoms turned to their Muslim neighbours in North Africa for assistance. Inevitably they paid with their sovereignty and the taifas were briefly reunited under Berber rule.

Despite initial successes, however, the Berber newcomers could not stem the tide of Spanish kingdoms that resented their presence. In a cataclysmic battle at Las Navas de Tolosa near Jaén, the kings of Castile, Aragon, Portugal and Navarre defeated the Caliph al-Nasir and the map of Al-Andalus began inexorably to shrink into the southeastern corner of the Iberian peninsula.

Dissent among the Spanish permitted the continuation of Muslim rule from 1232 under the Nasrid dynasty for another quarter of a millenium, albeit confined to Granada and its environs. Yet it was only a matter of time before the Christians would return. When the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella (of Aragon and Castile respectively) effectively united Spain, for the Nasrids there was nowhere left to turn but the sea.

The new invasion

In the Middle Ages, the tracks and trails of Western Europe filled with pilgrims headed for Lourdes, Santiago de Compostela, Jerusalem and other holy sites. As Chaucer makes plain in The Canterbury Tales, it wasn’t long before the leisured and the curious swelled the ranks of the pious. These fakers were the original tourists and their dust had barely settled when the Grand Tourers and the Baedeker devotees followed on to discover the beaux arts of Europe.

In 1967, the Spanish peseta was devalued and the drop in cost of living drew people from all classes to seek their own stories of sun, sea, sand and sundries in the high-rise hotels of Benidorm and the Torremolinos. When the Costas filled with foul-mouthed, heavy drinking sunburners, the British seaside turned quiet, then desolate.

For some folks, two weeks in Lloret was never enough. And if we consider the history of humanity, where there is demand, there will be supply. So from Alpine ski slopes like bottled spring water gushed forth that peculiarly un-British form of contract known as “timeshare”. Poolside holidaymakers were encouraged by a limitless supply of slickback shirtsleeves fresh out of the Essex College of Selling to take the plunge. In they dived and their trunks of money would be embarassingly lost.

In the present era, we have the Internet and people prefer to go direct. To a British enclave, using a British estate agent abroad and the foreign limb of a British bank. Old habits die hard.

Andalusia today is cosmopolitan in a way that the Caliphs would never have imagined. Visitors to the ancient pueblos blancos of the high Alpujarras are just as likely to find an English academic grabbing a few days’ peace between Trinity and Michaelmas, or a retired German hikenut in precariously short shorts following the goat trails.

El Poniente Granadino

Reasonably distant from bent builders, crooked councillors and false profits is the Poniente Granadino, the last border of Al-Andalus, where steep slopes are occupied by rows of olive trees or higher up, by thick snow.

The Poniente borders the provinces of Córdoba, Málaga and Jaén and produces some of the world’s finest olive oil. J and I stayed in a small converted stable about ten miles north of Loja, near Ventorros de San José.

• Director: Pedro Almodóvar
• Spain, 1987
• 

There’s much to like about the performances in Law of Desire. Eusebio Poncela plays a marvellously ambivalent, sexually ambiguous film director as his insouciance gives way to raw emotion while Carmen Maura takes well to her role as his gold-hearted, rough diamond sister.

But the real turn here is delivered by Antonio Banderas who, in portraying his second of three exemplary Almodóvar nutters, does a fine job of representing reckless jealousy with a worrying streak of sincerity.

So much for great acting, because the story holds about as much water as a bucket with a hole. Nevertheless, Almodóvar manages to plug it for a while at least and his treatment of similar themes – in 2004′s Bad Education – would prove more fruitful next time.