Legendary romances in Granada

The stones of the Sacromonte Abbey: white stone or black stone

According to legend, the Sacromonte Abbey boasts two stones with the power to influence your love life: Be warned! It can be for better or for worse.

Touching the black stone means you will find your significant other within a year. On the contrary, touching the white stone will cause your current partner to disappear from your life forever. Which do you prefer?

The White Lady of Castril.

The House of Castril was built on the foundations of an Arab palace. The Catholic Monarchs rewarded their secretary, Hernando Zafra, with permission to build his house in Castril.

Legend has it that Zafra lived with his 18 year old daughter, Elvira. When he became a widower, he was in a very bad mood and made enemies of the people of Granada with his contemptuous behaviour toward them. To make matters worse, his daughter Elvira fell in love with the son of an enemy family of the bad-tempered secretary: Alfonso de Quintanilla.

The lovers occasionally contrived to meet in Elvira's room with the help of a page. One night, they were caught by Zafra but Alonso managed to escape. When Elvira's father opened the door, he found his daughter half undressed beside the page who had helped them. Upon seeing them, Elvira's father concluded that the page had dishonoured his daughter. Full of ire, he decided to order the servant to be hung from the balcony immediately.

El paje pidió clemencia mientras Hernando de Zafra le espetaba: pide cuanta justicia quieras. Hang there and wait for heaven's mercy as long as you wish". After the execution, evil Hernando de Zafra had the balcony bricked up and wrote the sentence "Waiting for it from heaven" on the wall. Elvira was locked up in her room until she could bear it no longer and took her life with a powerful poison.

The fountain of eternal love.

A story of the romance between Elvira Padilla, a beautiful girl from Granada, and Gaspar de Facco, a young trader from Naples.

Legend has it that Elvira was in the habit of spending long afternoons beside a lovely white marble fountain in her house, pining for true love. One afternoon, as she strolled through the market in Bib-Rambla square, her modest gaze caught the eyes of a young man from Naples, who had come to Granada on business. Struck by the girl's beauty, the Italian requested a meeting with her father, Mr Luis Padilla y Miota, who received the young man. However, upon learning the true reason for the visit, he became very angry.

Before the meeting, the young man had managed to persuade Elvira's nursemaid to deliver some love letters to her charge. Elvira read them and consented to a secret meeting with him at her love fountain.

Guessing what the future had in store for them and unwilling to lose the opportunity of knowing each other, the pair fled to Motril to board a boat that would take them to Naples, where they could start a new life together.

They were caught in the vicinity of Alhendín by people who knew Elvira's father. They subdued and killed the young man and brought Elvira back to her house in Granada.

Her father ordered that she would live the rest of her life in the convent of the Comendadoras de Santiago. Elvira begged her father to grant her last wish to spend a few hours at her fountain. 

When the girl's mother saw her daughter lying dead near the fountain, she observed that her body was covered in the most beautiful flowers in the city. When Elvira's parents died, the fountain and the house were abandoned to the mercy of time. Over the years, young couples who know the legend have come to the fountain to promise eternal love and lay flowers beside it to commemorate such a moving love story. The fountain is located in the courtyard of the Palacio de los Córdova.

A miraculous fountain on the hill in the Realejo. 

The hill in the Realejo boasts a lovely Renaissance fountain. According to legend, young girls from all over the city would go to it to drink, wash and refresh themselves with its water. They believed that the water flowing from the fountain was so magical that it would keep them young and healthy, and help them to find a boyfriend. If you chance to go by the fountain, remember to cool off with its water, just in case. Perhaps Prince Charming is waiting for you, or your skin will become as smooth and silky as a baby's.