The Moors left a distinct mark on Andalusian culture.
While in Sevilla, they ruled from here, the Alcázar.
More than six centuries later, this magnificent building
still functions as a royal palace.
The Alcázar provides a thought-provoking glimpse
of a graceful Moorish world
that might have survived its Christian conquerors
but didn't.
What you see today is a 14th-century rebuild
done in Mudéjar style.
This was a Moorish style done by Moorish craftsmen
but for Christian rulers after the reconquest.
This became the king's palace.
Its centerpiece was the elegantly proportioned
Court of the Maidens.
It was decorated Mudéjar below and Renaissance above.
The king hired Muslim workers to give Moorish elegance
to what was a stark fortress.
They built what's considered the finest Mudéjar building
in all of Spain.
The intimate Dolls' Court was the king's living quarters.
Imagine the royal family lounging
around a reflecting pool in this courtyard.
The stylized Arabic script, a standard feature of mosques,
created a visual chant of Koranic verses,
but the decor is clearly Christian.
You'll see animals,
buildings and kings
that you wouldn't find in religious Muslim ornamentation,
which forbids images.
A century or so later,
just after Columbus' New World discoveries,
Queen Isabel built a more European- style wing to the palace.
Anticipating a big business in plunder and trade,
she built this to administer Spain's New World ventures.
The chapel is dedicated
to Santa Maria de los Buenos Aires.
St. Mary of the Good Winds
was the patron saint of navigators
and a favorite of Columbus.
This altar painting dates from
shortly after Columbus died and features what's considered
the first and most accurate
portrait of the great explorer on the left.
It's also thought to be the first painting of Indians done in Europe.
The Virgin's cape seems to protect everyone under it,
even the Indians.
Like the palace, the gardens reflect a mix of cultures.
The intimate geometric Moorish gardens
lead to the later, much more expansive
backyard of Spanish kings.
The gardens are full of tropical flowers, cool fountains,
and, in the summer, hot tourists.
I'm thankful we're here in late April,
beating the brutal heat of the Andalusian summer.
Granada's dominant sight is the Alhambra,
the last and greatest Moorish palace.
Nowhere else does the splendor of that civilization,
Al-Andalus, shine so brightly.
For two centuries, until 1492, Granada reigned
as the capital of a dwindling Moorish empire.
As Christian forces pushed the Moors further and further south,
this palace was the last hurrah of a sophisticated civilization.
While the rest of Europe slumbered
through much of the Middle Ages,
the Moorish civilization was wide awake.
The math necessary to construct this palace
would have dazzled Europeans at that age.
The Moors made great gains in engineering, medicine,
even classical Greek studies.
In fact, some of the great thinking of ancient Greece
had been forgotten by Europe but was absorbed into Islam
and actually given back to Europe
via scholars here in Spain.
The culture of the Moors was exquisite,
artfully combining both design and aesthetics.
Facing a reflecting pond, the hall of the ambassadors
was the throne room.
It was here that the sultan,
seated Oz-like, received foreign emissaries.
Its wooden ceiling illustrates a command of geometry.
With 8,000 pieces inlaid like a giant jigsaw puzzle,
it symbolizes the complexity of Allah's infinite universe.
Arabic calligraphy --
mostly poems and verses of praise from the Quran --
is everywhere.
Muslims avoid making images of living creatures,
that's God's work,
but decorating with religious messages is fine.
One phrase -- "only God is victorious" --
is repeated 9,000 times throughout the Alhambra.
Like the sultan, we can escape from the palace
into what was the most perfect Arabian garden in Andalucía.
This royal summer retreat, lush and bursting with water,
was the closest thing on earth
to the Quran's description of heaven.
In fact, its name -- the Generalife --
meant, essentially, that -- the Garden of Paradise.
Water, so rare and precious in most of the Islamic world,
was the purest symbol of life.
Whether providing for its 2,000 thirsty residents,
masking secret conversations,
or just flowing playfully, water was integral
to the space the Alhambra created.
We're side-tripping,
a short drive into the hills from Madrid,
to San Lorenzo de El Escorial.
The town has charm, but everybody visits for this:
Its sprawling palace.
In the mid 1500s,
King Phillip II needed a suitably grand palace
to establish his family dynasty,
the Spanish branch of the Habsburgs.
He also needed a headquarters
from which to run a strong, centralized Spanish state.
Phillip ruled his huge empire,
which stretched from Mexico to Manila, from here.
El Escorial was built during the Reformation,
a time when Catholic Spain was defending the Church
against the Protestant "heretics."
The enigmatic, introverted and extremely Catholic
King Phillip II
directed the Counter Reformation from this spot.
Today it's packed with history and art,
offering an evocative trip back
to Spain's most fascinating age.
El Escorial was more than an impressive palace
for a divine monarch.
It was a grand mausoleum for Spain's royal family.
It was a monastery
to provide constant prayer for the king's soul.
And it was a religious school
designed to teach and embrace humanism
in a way that fit the Catholic faith.
King Phillip built in austerity:
Plain white walls and bare-bones chandeliers.
His simple bed, with a mattress that's not even queen-size,
came with a view of the high altar in the basilica
just next door.
The basilica,
the architectural and spiritual heart of the complex,
is dedicated to the martyr St. Laurence.
The altar features a painting of the flame-engulfed grill
with St. Laurence meeting his fiery death.
Downstairs, the Royal Pantheon is the gilded resting place
of four centuries of Spanish kings and queens.
There's a strict filing system.
The first and greatest, Charles V,
and his queen, flank the altar on the top shelf.
Their son, Phillip II,
rests below Charles and opposite his wife, and so on.
Because kings might have married more than once,
to make it here, a woman needed to be both queen and mother of a king.
The immense library shows
that knowledge was a priority for the Spanish royalty.
The ceiling celebrates the seven classical disciplines
with a burst of color.
The elaborate model,
constructed after the age of Copernicus,
insists on proving that the solar system revolves,
unmistakably, around the earth.
As you leave, a plaque above the
door warns you'll be excommunicated
if you take a book without checking it out.
Who needs late fees when you hold
the keys to eternal damnation?
Madrid's Royal Palace
was built by Phillip V in the 1700s.
He was born in Versailles,
and while he ruled Spain for 40 years, he stayed very French.
The palace was designed to be Phillip's Versailles,
to help establish a new dynasty, the Bourbons,
and it's big, over 2,000 rooms.
With acres of lavish paintings and tapestries,
a king's ransom of chandeliers...
Priceless treasures and bronze decor covered in gold leaf.
There are over 150 fancy clocks in the palace,
all in working order.
Portraits of past royal residents
these are by the great Spanish painter Goya
decorate the walls.
In the lavish throne room golden lions tread red velvet,
symbolizing the might of the monarchy,
whose coat of arms incorporated many realms
and whose empire spanned both hemispheres.
Above the throne, the ceiling fresco by Tiepolo
celebrates that vast Spanish Empire,
upon which the sun never set.
A rainbow leads to a macho red-caped conquistador
and American Indians,
just some more distant Spanish subjects.
Phillip V,
the grandson of France's King Louis XIV,
began the Bourbon dynasty,
which continued into the 21st century
with the popular King Juan Carlos.
The palace is still used for formal state ceremonies
and receptions.
The king throws dinner parties for up to 150 guests
at this bowling lane-sized table.
The king's front yard?
It's enjoyed by all the people of Madrid.