Albaicín of Granada

Climbing the hill facing the Alhambra, the Albaicín preserves the tangled street plan of Moorish Granada, its whitewashed carmen houses and cisterns barely changed since the 15th century. After the 1492 surrender, treaties promised the Muslim population freedom of religion; within a decade those promises were broken, forced conversions and revolts followed, and the Moriscos were finally expelled from Spain in 1609–1614. From the Mirador de San Nicolás the whole Alhambra glows red at sunset—Bill Clinton called the view the most beautiful in the world. Below, the old streets still hide Arab bathhouses and a surviving Nasrid gate, memory embedded in stone.