Albaycín staircase

I took a second walk up the vertical staircase in the Albaycín covered in graffiti when I was in Granada two weeks ago, part of the circuit I’m running, in my free weekends, around Andalucía one last time before my flight leaves out of Sevilla on June 2. This time, I took a few more pictures.

The ancient hillside neighborhood – a village unto itself, really – is supposed to have received its name when Moorish refugees from reconquered Baeza encamped in the hills above Granada. Baeza being a small city a half hour north of Jaén, briefly wealthy when its local families were in favor with the royal court; they left, as spent carapaces, a number of lovely Renaissance buildings. Squint and, through a linguistic process I can hear but can’t describe, the Arabic prefix al- gets added to baeza or baezín or bayyasa or bayyasín, and ends up as albaycín or albaicín or albayzín. There are Albaicíns scattered throughout Grenadino pueblos & nearby cities, presumably all refugee neighborhoods, peopled & named by the same flight.