Alhama de Granada

Alhama de Granada, a municipality of 5,657 inhabitants as of the Instituto Nacional de Estadística’s 2024 census, lies some fifty kilometres southwest of the city of Granada within the province of Granada in Andalusia. Perched on the precipitous banks of the Alhama River and adjoined by the gentle foothills of the Sierras de Tejeda, Almijara and Alhama Natural Park, the town occupies a modest territorial expanse that bridges riverine ravines and terraced olive groves; its nomenclature, derived from the Arabic al-hammah (“the bath”), alludes to the hot springs that have sustained human presence since antiquity.

Since at least the first century of the Common Era, when Roman engineers channeled thermal effluvia into masonry-lined pools, Alhama’s sulphurous waters have drawn travellers in search of remedial hydrotherapy. Archaeological vestiges attest to the construction methods favoured by the Roman legions—opus caementicium foundations surmounted by low barrel vaults—while later Andalusi architects, in the Almohad style of the twelfth century, grafted horseshoe arches onto these remains, fashioning a bath house whose vaulted roof is pierced by star-shaped oculi that admit shafts of shifting daylight. Under this roof, the spring long known to the Romans still bubbles at a constant forty-seven degrees Celsius, its warmth reputed to soothe rheumatic afflictions and digestive disorders alike. A secondary source, discovered only in 1884 in the wake of a devastating earthquake whose epicentre lay perilously close to the town, issues forth mere metres from the original outflow—a geological testament to the tectonic unrest that has shaped Andalusia’s topography.

In the fifteenth century, as the Nasrid dynasty consolidated its dominion over the Kingdom of Granada, Alhama assumed strategic prominence upon the principal artery linking Málaga to the kingdom’s capital. Local historian Salvador Raya Retamero, in his monograph Reseña histórica de los baños termales de la muy noble y leal ciudad de Alhama de Granada, challenges the long-standing attribution of these structures to Moorish patrons; instead, he marshals documentary and stratigraphic evidence to reaffirm their Roman antecedents, while acknowledging the Mudejar artisans who preserved and extended the thermal complex. The town’s capture by the forces of the Catholic Monarchs in 1482—an event that precipitated the infamous lament “¡Ay de mi Alhama!,” uttered by Sultan Abu l-Hasan Ali upon learning of the loss—entered the Spanish lexicon as a lamentation of irretrievable regret. Its fall, recounted with sombre lyricism in Tariq Ali’s novel Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree, presaged the contraction of the Nasrid realm and heralded a nascent Christian era under royal patronage.

The shock of conquest did not, however, extinguish the town’s identity; rather, its thermal springs continued to beckon guests across religious divides. Over ensuing centuries, the Catholic Monarchs commissioned the Gothic-Renaissance Iglesia Mayor de la Encarnación in 1505 atop the footprint of the former congregational mosque, its façade attributed to Enrique Egas and its vaulted interior echoing with orisons that supplanted the call to prayer. Renaissance benefactors further endowed the Hospital de la Reina—erected upon the residence of the last Alhama qāḍī—which, with its coffered ceilings and hosannas to Christian charity, substituted medical succour for juridical counsel and now houses a centre for artisanal crafts. Nearby, the Caño Wamba fountain, erected in 1533, still issues crystalline water beneath its carved pilasters; fragments of the medieval synagogue linger within the Communal Granary, where storehouses for cereal and legumes recall the town’s agrarian foundations.

Alhama’s narrative bears other peculiar chapters. Born into bondage near the river’s edge in 1545 or 1546, Eleno de Céspedes would transcend her—or perhaps their—origins to emerge as one of Spain’s first female surgeons, and possibly the first in Europe, performing lithotomies and obstetric procedures at a time when medical faculties barred women from formal enrollment. Eleno’s life, enveloped in legal petitions and personal testimonies, sheds light on gender variances and the permeability of social boundaries in sixteenth-century Andalusia.

The cataclysm of the 1884 Andalusian earthquake, however, exacted a heavier toll than any medieval siege. Contemporary reports in El Defensor de Granada enumerated 463 fatalities and 473 injuries within Alhama; subsequent excavations of collapsed domiciles suggested that these figures underestimated the true loss of life. More than seventy per cent of the town’s masonry dwellings tumbled in rubble, while a further fifteen per cent were grievously impaired. The upper quarters, where newer villas clung to the arroyo’s brink, bore the brunt of the tremors; by contrast, the medieval core—its lower streets etched into older bedrock—remained comparatively intact. It was in the wake of this devastation that the newly unearthed thermal spring emerged, a serendipitous gift amid ruin.

Throughout the twentieth century, Alhama’s municipal boundaries fluctuated with the administrative absorption of Ventas de Zafarraya in 1975, an act that extended its jurisdiction into the higher ridges and incorporated an exclave of secluded pastures. Today, the municipality encompasses not only the old town—now designated a historic-artistic site—but also the hamlets of Buenavista, Pilas de Algaida and the Ventas district, the latter two united as an Autonomous Local Entity. These dependencies splay across an irregular perimeter, bordering no fewer than fourteen neighbouring municipalities—among them Loja to the north, Arenas del Rey to the south and Canillas de Aceituno in the province of Málaga—through which the rivers Merchán (or Alhama), Cacín, Cebollón and Madre trace sinuous courses.

Agriculture has long underpinned Alhama’s economy: cereal cultivation, olive groves and leguminous fields—particularly chickpeas—tilt the slope in a mosaic of ochre and emerald; transhumant flocks of sheep and goats traverse ancient drover’s roads, furnishing the region with cheese and wool. In recent decades, however, tourism has assumed growing prominence. The thermal spa—situated some two kilometres from the urban core atop Roman foundations—offers hydrotherapy treatments that draw guests from across Europe; as of 2007, local lodging comprised 403 hotel beds and 104 hostel berths, a figure that has since expanded with the conversion of traditional cortijos into guest houses. Immigrants, representing just over ten per cent of the population and hailing predominantly from Morocco, enliven the town’s commercial sectors, staffing cafés, bars and shops with an infusion of multilingual fluency.

Visitors encounter Alhama by several means: a four-times-daily bus connects the town to Granada, supplemented by services from Torre del Mar and Vélez-Málaga on the Costa del Sol; car rental at Málaga’s airport yields a scenic ninety-minute drive along the A-7, while those departing from Granada airport may traverse the A-44 in under an hour. Upon arrival, little besides the thermal baths lies beyond walking distance: fishmongers, butchers and verdulerías fill the morning markets, where on Fridays a bustling assemblage of stalls offers fresh produce, artisanal honey, pressed olive oil and locally vinified wines. In the afternoons, taverns proffer a “menu del día,” a three-course luncheon—often accompanied by pan and a vino tinto—for a modest price; as is customary in Granada, each beverage summons a complimentary tapa, a small plate that might feature salmorejo, grilled sardines or ham croquettes.

The calendar of fiestas underscores Alhama’s cultural vitality: on January the fifth, the Three Kings parade through narrow alleys, flinging candies to children below; on February the second, the medieval-derived Candelaria summons townspeople to small pyres, around which cups of wine are pressed into clammy palms; later that month a wine festival animates the plazas, followed by two weekends of carnaval, during which satirical floats and masked revelers proclaim the eve of Lent. Semana Santa processions wind through the ancient quarter, their penitents cloaked in penitential robes and bearing pasos that depict Christ’s Passion. Summer unfolds with a series of free cultural events—chamber music concerts within courtyards, outdoor film screenings projected against fortress-walls—and two ferias, in June to signal the advent of the warm season and in September to salute its departure. Municipal sports facilities, including an outdoor pool open from June through September, accommodate swimmers, while yoga sessions led by instructors such as Sami of Asura Yoga convene in sunlit rooms.

Beyond the thermal resort, adventure beckons: guided bicycle expeditions depart from Calle Salmerones under the aegis of Cycling Country Bike Tours; hikers trace footpaths along the gorge rim, pausing to admire the almost sheer drop of the Alhama Gorge; equestrian excursions traverse mountain trails, and enthusiasts of motorsport may rent quad bikes or go-karts in nearby loops. Kayakers and windsurfers frequent the sandy beaches of the Embalse de los Bermajales—a reservoir constructed between 1947 and 1954 in Arenas del Rey—whose hydroelectric dam yields a placid basin ringed by poplars and black pines. In winter, the slopes of the Sierra Nevada rise within ninety minutes by automobile, while summer day-trips afford coastal forays to the Costa Tropical, Nerja’s famed caverns or the coves of the Mediterranean littoral.

Heritage monuments punctuate the municipality’s fabric: the Roman bridge spanning the Alhama River remains in daily service, its arches echoing a bygone era; the baths at the Balneario, approached via a path beneath the Gothic buttresses of the Iglesia Mayor, retain the original Almohad vaults that enshrine the hot springs; the Church of the Carmen, with its sixteenth-century Renaissance nave and Baroque stuccowork, bears witness to the Counter-Reformation’s aesthetic; vestiges of the House of the Inquisition—limited now to its Isabelline Gothic façade—stand silent beside the Convent of San Diego, whose cloister once sheltered Capuchin friars. The Hermitage of Los Remedios perches at the town’s Granada-ward threshold; the medieval dungeons lie beneath the castle keep, reconstructed in the nineteenth century and inaccessible save to architectural scholars; and fountains such as that of the Pillar of Charles V or the Pillar of San Diego punctuate public squares with their sculpted mascarons.

In its topography of ravine and plateau, in its palimpsest of Roman, Islamic and Christian edifices, and in its human tapestry—woven from agrarians, migrants and spa-goers—Alhama de Granada persists as a microcosm of Andalusia’s longue durée. Its thermal waters continue to heal, its fiestas continue to unite, and its vistas—unbroken views toward the Sierra Nevada’s snow-tipped summits—continue to inspire those who tread its cobblestones or linger in its sun-warmed plazas. Here, where geologic convulsions have both wrought destruction and revealed new springs, the dialogue between past and present remains audible in every arch, in every bubbling pool, and in the very name that echoes across half a millennium: Alhama.