Paseo del Padre Manjón

This guide to the Paseo del Padre Manjón in Granada opens on a musicians' signal from a stone turret above the ravine beneath the Alhambra, once a scarred site left empty after a gunpowder explosion before nobles turned it into a stage for bullfights and mock cavalry battles. You'll hear how the crowds grew so large that workers scaffolded straight across the Darro riverbed to widen the arena, and how the Casa de las Chirimias earned its name from the trumpets and reed pipes played from its balcony. The guide follows the walk from those games toward the very different name Granada gave it generations later.