The sanctuary
The column-and-mirror vortex — the cave of impossible beauty.
Germán Póo-Caamaño from Victoria, Canadá — CC BY 2.0 · Holger Uwe Schmitt — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Holger Uwe Schmitt — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Holger Uwe Schmitt — CC BY-SA 4.0
Granada of two days plus: emphatically — its hour of astonishment keeps for life. One Alhambra-and-Albaicín day: don't juggle the priorities. Architecture devotees will find it obligatory, not optional.
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Granada's Charterhouse is Spanish Baroque's absolute summit — the shock deliberate: an austere exterior hides an interior detonating in gold, plaster and marble till the eye finds no rest: the famous sanctuary a vortex of twisted columns, mirrors and precious stones called "the cave of impossible beauty", the white sacristy a "Sistine of plasterwork" in carved unrepeating waves. It is the Alhambra's complete pedagogical opposite: unbridled Castilian triumph-ornament against Nasrid spiritual geometry — and seeing both in one day explains Granada's two adjoining centuries. On the university edge (a short bus or fifteen minutes' walk from the cathedral) — a dazzling hour far from every queue.
The column-and-mirror vortex — the cave of impossible beauty.
Carved white waves, no motif repeated.
Paseo de Cartuja, 18011 Granada