Michael Coy
FOR most people, Santa Fe is a place in the USA, vaguely recalled from 1950s Western movies. The original Santa Fe is Andalucian, and much more interesting!
First of all, we need to talk about the Vega of Granada.
Again, Las Vegas is a name we know from TV shows and films (maybe you’ve been there and lost your shirt in the famous casinos), but the history of the real vega is much richer than many people suppose.
In Spanish, a vega is a fertile plain, enclosed by mountains.
Granada’s Vega is, in a large sense, man-made. When the Arabs settled here 1,400 years ago, they saw its potential. By means of ingenious feats of engineering, they created a veritable Garden of Eden.
Sculpting and controlling run-off water from the Sierra Nevada mountains, they crafted a large, flat expanse of black-soil territory where almost anything could grow.
To this very day, the water channels (acequías) of the Vega make this one of the most productive farmlands of the world, and the signal each evening to lift the dagger-boards and let the water flow comes (as it did in Arab times) from a bell rung inside the Alhambra.
And Santa Fe is the very heart of the Vega.
Yet strange as it is to relate, this sub-tropical paradise of persimmons and avocados was created purely for war.
By the year 1490, the Arab Empire in Europe was on the point of final collapse. Only the city of Granada remained.
The so-called Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabel, had recently united Spain as a nation and were riding a wave of popular acclaim.
They sensed that the completion of the Reconquest would cement their place in history. For 200 years the Christians had been rolling back the Islamic influence in Spain, and now final victory was at hand.
The vast military camp which they assembled on the flat ground to the west of Granada, as a preliminary step to attacking the city, needed a symbolic Christian name, so they called their base Santa Fe (Holy Faith).
The ensuing campaign lasted two years.
As victory was being secured (January 1492), an odd Italian venture capitalist was noted hanging around Santa Fe (the army camp was starting to morph into a permanent town).
Modern Santa Fe still has the gridiron street plan of the original military base.
This stranger was none other than Christopher Columbus, a man obsessed with getting to Japan by sailing west. All he needed was money. He figured that the highly successful young rulers of Spain might be persuaded to cough up the dough.
READ MORE:
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- HIDDEN CORNERS OF SPAIN: Vejer de la Frontera – a whitewashed hilltop dream
He was right. On 17 April, 1492, the ‘Capitulations’ were signed, and the discovery of America (though nobody guessed it at the time) was assured. Accordingly, Santa Fe holds a festival on this date every year.
A curious event occurs on the opening night of Santa Fe’s feria, on or around 28 August – the burning of El Penas. By an odd reversal of history, this tradition has been imported from Santa Fe in New Mexico, the New World influencing the Old.
A committee collects (secretly) a list of bad things which have happened over the previous year. Cardboard models of these events are constructed, under wraps.
This culminates in a town bonfire, at which the community’s penas (sorrows) are burned. Everyone drinks sangria, and Santa Fe thus embarks on a fresh new year.
Located only eight miles from the city of Granada, Santa Fe is unlikely to appeal to you as a stopover, but it does boast some interesting restaurants.
The Bodega del Genovés on the Avenida de la Hispanidad is likely to catch your eye, not least because of the attention its owners devote to décor and ambience.
Open every day (closed Mondays) from 1pm to midnight, the establishment offers authentic Spanish food without forgetting the marketing value of Christopher Columbus (‘El Genovés’).
We recommend as a main course Huevos Rotos con Gulas y Gambas (literally, ‘Broken Eggs with Baby Eels and Prawns’).
This seafood-themed dish is a sautéd vegetable base, served with fried eggs – delicious, highly nourishing and inexpensive (€14).
For a town with plenty of history, in a superb agricultural setting, and located on the doorstep of Granada, you simply have to visit Santa Fe.
