GRANADA

Returning to the Alhambra is like rereading a book. The hilltop citadel built by the Nasrid sultans above Granada was a masterpiece of medieval engineering, but also of literature — poetry and philosophy expressed in dreamlike architecture. Verses, blessings and ruminations were etched into its facades so the structure would seem to speak. In Arabic, of course, which I don’t understand at all.

On each of my three visits, spaced out over 20 years, I’ve heard guides translate various inscriptions from across the courtyards. ‘The perpetual bliss, the continual ecstasy…’ runs one long strand around the reflecting pool of the Comares Palace.

‘Be sparing with your words, and you’ll go in peace’ warns the inner wall above the Sultan’s throne, set beneath a domed roof composed of more than 8,000 separate pieces inlaid with a wooden constellation of stars, representing all seven heavens