Pomegranate Gate (Puerta de las Granadas)

At the top of the Cuesta de Gomérez, the city stops abruptly. Walk through this arch and you enter another Granada, a place of woods, water and legends. Look up: three split-open stone pomegranates, the symbol of the city, crown the pediment beside the imperial coat of arms of Charles V.

1An arch for an emperor

The gate was built in the sixteenth century, as part of the building programme that followed the stay in Granada of Charles V and his wife, Isabella of Portugal, in 1526, a few weeks after their wedding in Seville. It was directed by Pedro Machuca, architect of the Palace of Charles V, and replaced a Nasrid gate known as Bib al-Buxar. Until the eighteenth century it was called the Gate of the Gomérez. The reclining figures on the pediment represent Peace and Abundance.

2Woods that were not always here

In Nasrid times this hillside was kept clear, for defensive reasons. The trees came with the replanting ordered by the Christian governors of the Alhambra, the Mendoza family, and the present-day walks were laid out in the nineteenth century. On the left begins the cobbled path, the traditional way up to the Gate of Justice, next to a marble devotional cross.

Many Romantic travellers came up this way with Washington Irving’s book under their arm, searching for the princesses and treasures of his tales.

The woods are free to walk through. Visiting the Nasrid Palaces, on the other hand, usually requires a ticket for a set day and time, best booked well in advance: check the official website of the Patronato before you go up.

3What to look for

• The three pomegranates split open on the pediment.
• The rusticated stonework, in the Italian manner.
• The remains of the walls climbing on either side of the arch.