Alpujarras: Suspiro del Moro

Once upon a time in the deep south of Spain lived a Moorish king, Boabdil. He lived a life of luxury and Riley in the Alhambra Palace from where he ruled the last bastion of the Moors – the kingdom of Granada (today's Granada, Malaga and Almeria)

Obviously, the Spanish Catholic rulers, who'd just spent the last few hundred years trying to reconquer the country in the name of Christianity were a bit razzed off that there were still Moors about swanning around like they owned the place.

So in 1491 they blockaded Granada from their nearby HQ Santa Fe (where Christopher Columbus was given the go ahead for the catholic conquest of America.) Anyway after 18 months Boabdil gave up, handed over the keys to Ferdinand and Isabella and with much wailing for joy, the cross replaced the crescent moon on the Alhambra.

Boabdil hands over the keys to Granada to Ferdinand and Isabella

In return for his cooperation in not coming out for a scrap in the pub car park with the Catholics, Boabdil was given land in the Alpujarras. On his way there, going through a mountain pass, he turned to look back at Granada and his pleasure palace and sighed deeply. His mother, ever one with a cheery repost, retorted,

"Now you weep like a woman over what you could not defend as a man."

because she obviously had the better plan of going out and nagging to death the half a million Catholics camped outside the city walls.

To this day, this mountain pass is called Suspiro del Moro, (the Moor's Sigh) and it even has its own motorway signs.

And to finish this tale, when I related the story of our visit to the Alhambra (when we couldn't get in because the queue resembled the besieging Catholic armies in size and number) to my mother who had actually been, her cheery summing up of hundreds of years' worth of Moorish architecture was,

“you've missed nowt.”