By Derek Dohren
Many great modern cities are built around rivers – think Rome (the Tiber), Paris (the Seine) or London (the Thames); rivers whose names are synonymous with the cities they flow through. Yet though the city of Granada may not appear on anyone’s list of such great river cities it can actually boast not just one; but two waterways coursing through its heart.
The Darro and the Genil straddle the great bluff of rock upon which the Alhambra Palace sits, making strikingly plain the strategic importance of this location for defending the city from marauding armies.
Of the two it is perhaps the Darro that has the most colourful history. In ancient times the river was panned for gold and the Romans named it ‘Aurus’ in recognition of the traces of this precious metal regularly extracted from silt deposits. During Granada’s Islamic occupation the river was renamed ‘Hadarro’ by the new Moslem rulers only for later Christian conquerors to re-title it ‘Dauro’, a name that eventually morphed into Darro.
The river’s presence, whose source is north of the city in the Sierra de Huetor, has always been highly valued. In 1238 The Nasrid Sultan Ibn al-Ahmar had it partially diverted and pumped uphill, some 6 kilometres, to bring to life the magnificent water features of the Alhambra and to irrigate the Generalife gardens.
And yet visitors today strolling along the Paseo de los Tristes, at the foot of the Alhambra will see very little of this special river. What remains on view as it wends its way west, promptly disappears under a bridge and vanishes below Plaza Nueva. What happens to it and where does it go?
Well, the river is still there and it still runs through the city – quite literally in fact. It flows under Reyes Catolicos, turns left at Puerta Real, and makes its way underneath the aptly named Acera del Darro before popping out just in front of the capacious Mercadona where it surrenders to the rather larger Genil. If you veer right after coming out of the supermarket and peer down over the bridge before the zebra crossing you can see the two rivers conjoin.
The river was paved over in the eighteenth century in an audacious feat of civil engineering as the city grew and expanded. So it’s largely out of sight, that the Darro meanders its final dignified kilometre or so, beneath a daily procession of cars, buses and the feet of thousands of granadinos.
Coming down from its source in the Sierra Nevada, the Genil is powered by spring melt water. It’s waters are dammed upstream as part of a large hydro electricity network and channelled into reservoirs supplying the city.
The river level notoriously rises and falls throughout the year in accordance with these demands further upstream. Thankfully, on the night Spain won last summer’s World Cup, there was enough water in the bed to accommodate the thousands of revellers who decided to fling themselves off the bridge at the Paseo de Salon.
After picking up the Darro the river continues its journey west, via Zaidin and out of the city. It’s joined by a smaller tributary, the Monachil which also comes down from the Sierra Nevada, before succumbing itself to the huge Guadalquivir – one of Spain’s foremost rivers.
These three great rivers, the Darro, Genil and Guadalquivir form the basis of one of Federico Garcia Lorca’s famous poems:
Baladilla de los tres ríos
The river Guadalquivir
Flows between oranges and olives
The two rivers of Granada
Descend from the snow to wheat
Oh my love!
Who went and never returned
Oh my love!The river Guadalquivir
Has beards of maroon
The two rivers of Granada
One a cry, the other blood
Who vanished into thin air
For the sailboats
Sevilla has a course;
Through the water of Granada
Only sighs are rowing
Oh my love!
Who went and never returned
Guadalquivir, high tower
And the wind in the orange groves
Darro and Genil, little towers
Dead on the ponds
Oh my love!
Who vanished into thin air
Who will say that the water bears
A vain fire of screams
Oh my love
Who went and never returned
Carry orange blossom, carry olives,
Andalucia, to your seas
Oh my love
Who vanished into thin air.
El río Guadalquivir
va entre naranjos y olivos.
Los dos ríos de Granada
bajan de la nieve al trigo.
¡Ay, amor
que se fue y no vino!
El río Guadalquivir
tiene las barbas granates.
Los dos ríos de Granada
uno llanto y otro sangre
¡Ay, amor
que se fué por el aire!
Para los barcos de vela
Sevilla tiene un camino;
por el agua de Granada
sólo reman los suspiros.
Guadalquivir, alta torre¡Ay, amor
que se fue y no vino!
y viento en los naranjales.
Dauro y Genil, torrecillas
muertas sobre los estanques.
¡Ay, amor
que se fue por el aire!
¡Quién dirá que el agua lleva
un fuego fatuo de gritos!
¡Ay, amor
que se fue y no vino!
Lleva azahar, lleva olivas,
Andalucía, a tus mares.
¡Ay, amor
que se fue por el aire!
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