Once all roads led to Rome, but between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries all roads led to Granada, the city at the heart of al-Andalus, the name given to more than half the Iberian peninsula when it was ruled by the Moors. Under the benign rule of the Nasrid sultanate there had evolved a cultural and artistic flowering that drew scholars and artists to the city, a world that died in 1492, when the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabel, reconquered Granada and expelled the Moors.

Among those bewitched by the beauty and tragedy of the city’s past was Granada’s own playwrightpoet, Federico Garc!a Lorca whose ghost still haunts the place. Dr. Kathleen Richmond of Sandown High School, Isle of Wight, has organised school trips there using the work of Lorca as an introduction. “Most students visit because of Lorca,” she says. “As the A-level syllabus has for many years included the texts of his plays and poetry, a visit to Granada is the best way for them to understand the context in which he wrote.”

Lucy Monks, a student, says: “We walked everywhere with Ian Gibson’s book Lorca’s Granada as our guide. It put everything in context. We split up into groups and explored different sections of the book and in the evenings we discussed what we’d seen and done that day.

But for her, a visit to Fuente Vaqueros, the village where Lorca was born, was the best part of the trip. “He really came alive for us there,” says Lucy. The house is a 20-minute bus ride away from central Granada, and is now a simple museum and a shrine to his memory.

Granada is not overrich in galleries and museums, but it has the massive red-walled citadel (Al Qal’a al-Hamra means ‘red fort’) inside which the first Nasrid king, Ibn al-Ahmar, built seven palaces. (The vast Renaissance building within the walls is a 16th century addition by Carlos V, and is the only surviving work of Pedro Machuca, a former pupil of Michaelangelo.) The palace that has given its name to theatres, cinemas and pleasure gardens all over the world, demands a whole day’s visit. Little is known about the architects who designed these beautiful rooms or when they were completed. As Islam forbids depictions of people, the artwork from the 14th century Patio of the Lions and the Ambassador’s Hall to the Patio of Arrayanes and the gardens of Lindaraja, centres on geometric forms, delicate filigree plasterwork and the subtle play of light, shade and water. The statues of the lions in the Patio however, are credited to Muhammad V who built and decorated many of the rooms on his accession to the throne in 1354, and the Serallo was designed by Yusuf I (1333-54).

Higher up on the hill is the Generalife, the summer residence of the sultans, surrounded by perfumed rose gardens, fountains and pools, a tribute to Ibn al-Ahmar and his fourteenth century engineers who diverted the River Darro to supply running water to the palace.

Below the Alhambra Hill lies the “other” Granada with Diego de Siloe’s Renaissance cathedral, (facade designed by the Granadino Alonso Cano, responsible also for the statues in the church), built on the site of the Great Mosque. Next to it stands the Royal Chapel, Granada’s most impressive Christian building which houses the tombs of the Catholic Monarchs. The students were enthusiastic about old Granada, the Alcaicer!a, former silk exchange, the Corral del Carbon, a former thirteenth century Moorish Inn and corn exchange, and the Albaic!n, a maze of sinuous, cobble-stoned alleyways leading to the carmenes, houses with flower-filled courtyards half-hidden behind wrought-iron gates and Sacramonte where they went to see the gypsies dance flamenco in the caves. They appreciated the regional food specialities too, like papas a lo pobre (poor man’s potatoes) a mixture of potatoes, egg, garlic and peppers fried slowly in olive oil, Trevelez Serrano, ham cured in the Sierra Nevada snows, and fava beans and rabbit, all of which met with the group’s approval.

Thinking of its artistic loss, Lorca used to say that the reconquest of Spain by the Christians monarchs Ferdinand and Isabelle, was its greatest tragedy. But there is still beauty in Granada and it has resisted being made into an Arabian theme park and that is our good fortune.

HOW TO GET THERE

* No direct flights to Granada. BA (which the Sandown group travelled with) has flights to Malaga - prices depending on dates and numbers. Coach and hotel information from Granada Tourist Office Tel: +34-958-225-990 Fax: +34-958-223-927 Coaches: Alsina Graells, Granada, SA Tel: +34-952-318-295. Schools Abroad, Friary House, Colston Street, Bristol BS1 5AP. Tel: 0117 925 3545 Fax: 0117 929 3697. Written quotation for school trips within 7 days.

* Alhambra: Minibus from Plaza Isabel every ten minutes: 20 minute walk from the Plaza Nueva. Tickets MUST be pre-purchased. Group prices and bookings, +34-902-224-460. Normally 8 Euros p.p.

* Lorca Museum in Fuente Vaqueros: Tues-Sunday 10a.m.-1p.m. and 6p.m.-8p.m. Guided visits hourly 2 Euros. Buses depart Granada hourly from front of train station) from 8 p.m.

* Casa Museo Manuel de Falla, (Tues-Sat. 10.15a.m.-2.45p.m.) Entrance 3 Euros. Spanish Tourist Office: Tel: 020-7486-08077: londres@tourspain.es