Its name, prosaically, means "the red place" after the colour of the stucco and the local soil. What we see today is tantalising because there was once much more: this was a complete walled city, a capital and seat of government and mosque as well as a royal residence. But the key parts of the palace have survived the insensitive later Renaissance alterations of Charles V, subsequent decline and neglect, severe bouts of vandalism inflicted in 1812 by the armies of Napoleon, an earthquake in 1821, and even the dawn-to-dusk hordes that mass tourism has brought in recent years. It is ironic that the most celebrated and evocative part of the complex, the Casa Real or Royal Palace, was not built to last, being cheaply built of common materials, but lavishly decorated inside. Successive rulers were meant to rebuild it to their own tastes: the last to do so was Muhammad V in the late 14th century.

Its impact is heightened by the drama of its setting high on a hill, which makes the approach, along narrow woodland paths, feel appropriately enough like a passage from one world to another. Within the complex, the courtyards function as great rooms open to the sky, while the buildings are layered, permeable, the boundaries between inside and outside, light and dark, blurred and ever-changing. Finest, intricately-carved marble and wood is contrasted with basic stucco.