Re-visiting Granada

Setting aside my rose-tinted glasses for a moment.

View of the Alhambra in Granada

I’m back in Granada after three years, and I re-visited the post I wrote for my travel blog the last time I was here.

It was titled “The Death of a Famous Poet,” and it was about my first impressions of Granada. I also wrote about the famous poet from Granada, Federico García Lorca. For me, as an English Literature graduate, my impressions of Granada will always be intertwined with the life and work of Lorca.

I was a different person back then, and experienced a different Granada. It was summer, and there were no snow caps on the Sierra Nevadas behind the Alhambra like there are now. I wore week-old clothes that were wrinkled from being stuffed inside a backpack, and lived off of street kebabs.

This time I’m visiting with my parents, whose money allows me to eat three sit-down meals a day, try every Moroccan dessert in the tea houses, and stay in a fancy hotel near the Alhambra. This time, it’s Semana Santa, and the streets are absolutely mobbed with college-aged tourists here to drink all night while watching the traditional processions.

Semana Santa procession

Back then, I had just discovered the works of Federico García Lorca. I had memorized stanzas of his poems, even though my Spanish was a lot worse than it is now, and recited them under my breath. I was going through my first breakup so naturally I related to his lovelorn lyricism.

In my original blog post, I described my romanticised vision of Granada, through the eyes of someone who had been reading a lot of García Lorca and exhaling a lot of dramatic sighs. It was the first time I had ever seen Moorish architecture and it all struck me as very novel and exotic.

It’s true, Granada is so unlike anywhere else in Europe or North America, wandering through it’s mosaic streets feels like an opium dream. Similarly, the writings of García Lorca are some of the most romantic pieces I have ever read. Full of sensual, surreal images. Moonlight is frozen honey poured over a desert landscape. Flowers bloom on the floor of a phone booth when the poet hears the voice of his far-away lover.

Graffiti on a wall in Granada

But now, I am a more cynical lover, as well as a more cynical and seasoned traveler. I still appreciate Lorca’s writing, but I cringe when I remember how quixotic I was back then.

Now, I can’t help but feel disillusioned by the floods of tourists whose feet are so numerous they obscure the mosaic patterns in the streets. I avoid eye contact with the sun-tanned panhandlers and buskers determined to squeeze a few euros from this colorfully-dressed flood of humanity.

Now, in 2026, García Lorca has been on my mind again. I have seen his face everywhere. Printed on tote bags and banners in antifascist rallies in Madrid. Hanging from people’s balconies. Now, I am more interested in Lorca’s legacy as a symbol of political resistance.

Inscription on the wall of the Alhambra

Federico García Lorca was born in Fuente Vaqueros, just outside the city of Granada. The Granada province was also where he was murdered by Fascists in 1936, at the age of 38. His body was thrown in an unmarked grave, and has never been found.

It was pretty obvious that Lorca was killed because of his Socialist sympathies and homosexuality. The Fascist party had begun hunting down anyone whose intellect or creativity was deemed threatening to the regime.

Socialists around the world have claimed Lorca as a symbol of political resistance and socialist martyrdom. But although Lorca sympathized with the oppressed and spoke out against political and societal forces of oppression, he was fervently apolitical. He was known to have friends across the political spectrum, making him an inconvenient icon.

Lorca’s intense love affair with Salvador Dalí has been well-documented. So too, has Dalí’s masochistic sympathies with Nazi racism. Dalí was ultimately kicked out of the Surrealist circle due to his support of Franco, the same regime that murdered Lorca. Their relationship seemed messy, irreconcilable.

On my recent trip to Granada, I visited the Federico García Lorca Center, which has an exhibit on an unfinished Surrealist film written by Lorca. The exhibit amounted to a confusing mix of surrealist sketches by Lorca, sketches by Dalí, and 3D pieces by contemporary artists.

It was supposed to mean something about the repression of love and self-expression among the rise of fascism. But If there was any kind of narrative, I couldn’t discern it. To me, it was an illegible flood of impressions. Images that could mean something, if you were determined enough to believe that they did.

Even though my rose-tinted lenses have cracked, I think I prefer this new version of Granada. A beautiful city in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas, that has been rebuilt over and over to re-capture an ancient splendor. A city with complicated history, and modern problems.

When it was the capitol of the Moorish kingdom, Granada’s Alhambra was built to represent paradise on earth. When commoners ascended the great hill to the walled fortress, and approached the sultan’s palace, they had to believe they were approaching closer to heaven, which is why the Alhambra still has the power to take your breath away. But this was all just theatrics to begin with.

There is no such thing as a perfect paradise on earth, and there are no perfect martyrs.