Granada
The striking views of the Alhambra with the snow-topped Sierra Nevada Mountains blend into the unique landscape of the city and its surrounding. The Alhambra itself is the most modern contribution of Islamic UNESCO Heritage as it was home to the kings who ruled over a vast kingdom. Capital to the province of Granada, the last Muslim kingdom of al-Andalus used to extend further, from Gibraltar to the north of Murcia region, just south from Valencia. The kingdom had a northern border of over 1000 km of mountain ridges and the southern Mediterranean coast as its southern border. Granada itself was a refugee city that emerged in times of turbulence amongst the different Muslim regions, tribes, armies and governors that brought down the Umayyad Caliphate itself. Having 250 years of Muslim history than Córdoba, Seville and the rest of Al-Andalus, Granada represents the modernization of Al-Andalus and its infusion into the Christian north through generous protection money, paid by Muslim kings to have their borders secured by and from their own neighbour kings. This fragile balance would break again due mostly to inner turbulence and a solemn desire by the Catholic Kings to take over the city, and for which goal Spain itself was declared, uniting four kingdoms into one, through the marriage of Isabelle and Fernando in 1469.
