I’m walking up the sidewalk to the Alhambra and I see a graffiti carving on a stone fence that said “W. Irving slept here.” and I think that maybe I’m in the right place.

Just kidding.

The truth is that the word alhambra means a fortress or palace, in particular the one built by Moorish Kings in Granada, Spain . There are many places which can be referred to as an alhambra. But, common usage gives only one, the one in Granada, a claim to the meaning of the word. I’d visited it before. Washington Irving immortalized it in his famous book, Tales of the Alhambra.

I came here a number of years previously. There were no lines. I didn’t have to queue to get tickets. I don’t remember Granada being such the metropolis that I saw on this visit, implying that I stayed in the northern section of the city and never made it to the new part of town.