My favorite place in town is called Albayzín. It is a medieval origin district which was built on the hills that crown the city. From there, you can see the horizon beyond it. Its narrow steep streets protect it from vehicles and crowds and the singing of the birds perched on the cypresses mixes with the prayers from the mosque. Albayzín is a neighborhood to be walked; the smell of the hidden rose gardens always gets to jump the high lime walls and lulls the imagination of the walker. You can’t see what’s behind those white barriers but you can fantasize by listening to the running of the indoor water fountains.
But I guess that if Albayzín is a unique place for me is because over there time seems to stop and memories of what never happened populate it. I like passing by the old house where my father was born, staring at the balcony and watching him in his youth, his blue eyes immersed in those books, his round table, the iron lamp on it and the smoke of his cigarette blurring the image…
Albayzín seems to be covered by sun and silence, and when the sky gets turquoise and the night falls, the moon and the weak streetlights shyly point in a direction, impossible to follow. If I have to capture a moment, like a perfect picture of this place, it would be a while after the sunrise, facing the snow-capped mountain chain, the wind waving the striped curtains of the gypsies’ caves and the kids running to school, and among them, my father.
