Sacromonte Route in Granada

THE SACROMONTE: HISTORY, EMOTION AND GOBLIN

The Sacromonte is one of the most emblematic and picturesque neighborhoods of the city of Granada.

At the end of the fifteenth century, on the other side of the Nasrid wall, a wall that today embraces us from the church of San Miguel alto, the gypsies settled. There, outside the walls, the Moorish inhabitants, Hispanic Muslims without resources and the African slaves of the Nasrid nobility took refuge when, after the Capture of Granada in 1492, they were free, poor and disoriented. They drilled the hill and created a structured network of houses carved into the rock: the caves bleached with lime.

In 1595 a find changed the life of the Cerro de Valparaíso, in a secluded place and close to the caves were discovered some ovens of Roman times and in them, vestiges that attested to the martyrdom of the first bishop of Granada: San Cecilio, one of the seven apostolic men, disciples of Santiago apóstol, Santiago el mayor, patron saint of Spain. The martyrdom was detailed in the Plumbean Books that are preserved today in the Abbey. Emotion took over the city of Granada. Its archbishop, Don Pedro Vaca de Castro y Quiñones, declared in 1607 the authenticity of the relics found and with it promoted the construction of a place to worship the holy martyrs. That place would be called since then the Sacred Mount of Granada: the Sacromonte.

Knowing the history of this peculiar neighborhood of Granada, and walking through its paths, squares and ravines, irremediably takes us to a different world, where the past survives, resisting to disappear, and the heart of the walker who explores it, is moved under a mysterious influence in which the zambras give way to the stories of the white caves; where the caves join hopelessly to the imposing Abbey that outlines the Cerro de Valparaíso. There, the Christ of the Gypsies, especially at Easter, raises the most ardent of devotions between pitas and prickly pears. From the echo of the rocks, you can still feel the braying of the donkeys and the sound of hammers hitting the anvil of the forges to the rhythm of cante jondo; we can still taste the esparto, the copper pans and the ceramic decorating the white walls, inside and outside the caves, and the chairs of enea invite us to sit next to the open doors with the curtains of enough fabric.

Let yourself be surprised by the fascinating sacromontano world where in addition to the charismatic flamenco, Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity since 2010, we will discover the way of life, personality and religiosity of its history and its people.

Language available for the route: Spanish, English, French, Italian and Russian.