Tales of the Alhambra Tales of the Alhambra Tales of the Alhambra is a collection of essays, verbal sketches, and stories by Washington Irving. Shortly after completing a biography of Christopher Columbus in 1828, Washington Irving travelled from Madrid, where he had been staying, to Granada, Spain. At first sight, he described it as "a most picturesque and beautiful city, situated in one of the loveliest landscapes that I have ever seen." Irving was preparing a book called "A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada", a history of the years 1478–1492, and was continuing his research on the topic. He immediately asked the then-governor
Moorish Gibraltar the Kingdom of Castile in 1309 after a short siege. Muslim control was restored in 1333 after another, much longer, siege. The city subsequently underwent a major expansion and refortification. A number of buildings and structures from this period still exist, including the Moorish Castle, parts of the Moorish walls, a bath-house and a subterranean reservoir. Gibraltar was subjected to several more sieges before its final fall on 20 August 1462 (feast of St. Bernard) to Christian forces under the 1st Duke of Medina Sidonia. The population, Muslim and Jewish, was expelled "en masse" and replaced by Christian settlers. Gibraltar's