Carmen de los Martires .. Granada

Carmen de los Martires – Granada, Spain

Granada Carmen de lost Martires Pool © Alice Joyce

Take the same minibus that serves the Alhambra monument and ask to be dropped off at the Alhambra Palace Hotel stop. Walk along the hilly road past the Manuel de Fall Concert Hall and you’ll arrive at the gateway to Carmen de los Martires – a little-known gem of a garden that’s far less imposing than the Alhambra monument, yet beguilingly serene.

Above: the narrow confines of a walled patio garden feature a rectangular pond, mosaic pavement, and richly embellished portal with multiple archways, befitting the design tradition of the carmen’s Andalusian Muslim heritage.

Granada Carmen de los Martires Fountain © Alice Joyce

Built to memorialize Christian martyrs, the Carmen’s cloistered site provided sanctuary as a Carmelite convent in the 1500s. And while history records later  owners – including Don Carlos Calderon who constructed a villa here, the property’s fetching sense of place is credited to Huberto Meersmans. A romantic whose vision inspired a 19th Century landscape of interconnected gardens influenced by English, French, and Spanish styles.

Strolling the carmen’s picturesque, terraced terrain promises a pleasurable outing. Orchards connect to informal woodlands crowned by soaring cypresses. Rounding a bend, the path’s dappled shade gives rise to a secret grotto. The tableau of a modest lake, set off by an island, tower, and wooden footbridge, calls you to go forth. Venturing further, a perfectly ordered Mediterranean oasis is a refreshing spot to pause, its grove of palms encircling a splashing fountain.

Recently restored as a public park, the grounds of the carmen are anchored by the villa building; its entry portico and rooftop balustrade facing a broad sun-drenched promenade where peacocks strut about, welcoming visitors. Dense greenery enlivens this expanse, with a row of benches on one side to take in the birds’ antics. Across the way pencil cypresses frame far-reaching views of the Sierra Nevada mountains.