Did you know the Alhambra was a popular board game? Probabaly didn't if you're Spanish.

Most Spaniards unaware of popular board game based on one of their country's most emblematic sites.

In Spain you can find all kinds of things named Alhambra: travel agencies, driving schools, pastries, even a famous beer brand. That's understandable since the Alhambra palace fortress, a symbol of the city Granada and one of Spain's most popular tourist sites, is known throughout the world, and Spaniards are rightly proud of it. What few Spaniards are aware of, however, is that it has inspired one of the most popular board games in Europe. While Alhambra the game flies off store shelves in places like Germany, France and the Nordic countries, it currently has no distributor in the land of its namesake.

“In Spain many people have held the license for Alhambra, but nobody has kept it very long” Haritz Solana, spokesman for Asmodee, the game's last Spanish distributor, explained to the El Mundo newspaper recently.

“It's funny, because it's a game that has won game of the year several times, with more than seven extensions, but it does not work here. We sold 500 units on the first run and little else.”

Alhambra is a classic board game, with cards, but no dice, in which players must collect materials to construct the monument and take turns to build it step by step. The game, which can be played by up to four people and can last hours, has received at least half a dozen international awards. It is one of a series of Alhambra themed pastimes produced by Queens Games.

Its creator, Dirk Henn, a German with a love of and fascination for Granada, has just developed another game carrying the name of the city itself. Granada can be combined with Alhambra, which makes the competition last much longer, because you not only build the palace, but the city around it. A video game version of Alhambra was in development, but has been indefinitely postponed.

Juan Cruz who owns Freak Mondo (Shorn Freak), the only store that sells the board game in Granada, told El Mundo, “At Christmas I sold the last three that I had. Now I have one sample and if anyone wants one, I have to order it from Germany. Though there's not much interest. I had to take it out of the store window because my regular clients took it as a joke.”

While on first sight it may invite some chuckles among Spaniards, what with the box bearing images of exotic Ottoman looking domes and Arabs wearing turbans and slippers with curled-tips, Cruz thinks if they gave it a chance they would appreciate it

“I understand that is was developed with a Central European audience in mind,” explained Cruz, “but when you play it, being from Granada and knowing the monument, you realize that it has been designed by someone who knows and likes the site.”

However, Asmodee spokesman Solana added that “there is no culture of modern board games, in Spain. Yes, there is a love of traditional games, but among the youth there is no interest in more recent board games. To start with there is the weather, so in Spain they hang outside with friends. And when something did take hold, it was the video console.”

The three best-selling board games in Europe are the The Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne and the Alhambra, according to Solana.

“Here Alhambra sells nothing, or very little – not even among [board game] aficionados.”

Cruz is more direct and attributes the lack of interest to “a certain snobbery, a shame that we seem to have when something successful has to do with our city. Yes, it is true that in recent years, because of the [economic] crisis, people have been buying more games, because if it costs 20 euros, and you go in on the purchase with four or five people, then you can tire yourself out playing and buying sodas without spending much. But the Alhambra has a curse.”

The Alhambra cursed? Well, the game in Spain, anyway.

You can check out how the game is played in the video review below:

A Holy Week Confession / Una Confesión de Semana Santa

What's the confession? Simply that I find Spain's Semana Santa observances really boring.

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Well, having the week off I find interesting, but the Semana Santa celebrations held throughout Spain are sooooooooooo boring. The first time I saw one of the traditional processions, I initially found the phenomenon rather interesting. After the first hour or so, however, my mind started wandering -- and wondering what the big deal was about. I ended up feeling like I was at a slow motion, humorless Mardi Gras parade on downers.

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Despite the history, the color, the pageantry, the crowds, and the obvious effort put into the events by the organizing groups (called brotherhoods and fraternities / hermandades y cofradías), these are simply people traipsing about in somewhat frightening looking “penitential robes” (think KKK), carrying enormous religious tableaus (similar to those that can be seen in many Roman Catholic churches) and marching methodically to mind-numbing dirges. You almost expect to see self-flagellating footsloggers somwhere in all the fanfare. What fun!

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Maybe "ominously boring" would be a good way of describing such depressing extravaganzas. To me it's sort of like a bad dream that keeps repeating -- here comes another group of hooded men laboring under another massive platform that holds another brightly painted Sacred Heart / Virgin Mary / Crucifixion / Martyred Saint sculpture, followed by another group of robed acolytes, followed by another group of candle-carrying women in black, followed by another group of hooded men laboring under another massive platform that holds another brightly painted Sacred Heart / Virgin Mary / Crucifixion / Martyred Saint sculpture, followed by another group of robed acolytes, followed by another group of candle-carrying women in black, followed by another group of hooded men... All to the accompaniment of incessant drumming, mournful wailing, and/or brass instruments slowly blaring funereal hymns.

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I find Barcelona a good place to spend this holiday week because there are not very many Semana Santa spectacles, and, therefore they are easy to avoid. In many other cities, especially in Andalusia, they seem to almost completely take over the streets. I speak from some experience, because despite my negative reaction to that first Semana Santa scene, I have given it a try in various Spanish cities, including Alicante, Granada, Malaga and Palma de Majorca.

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Being in Palma was similar to being in Barcelona (i.e., no problems skipping the realtively few parades), so I enjoyed every bit of my time there. While I loved the cities of Alicante and Malaga, I did so despite visiting during Semana Santa. Alicante didn't have as many parades as Malaga and in both places I could at least head to the beach for a little respite when there were "festivities" droning on. In landlocked Granada, however, I was more or less trapped. Indeed, I remember feeling almost hounded by the city's seemingly non-stop processions!
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Instead of the memory of that experience fading, it has actually expanded to include fantastic images of myself being pursued by penitents down Granada's ancient streets, which in my mind seem to wind around in an Escher-like labyrinth. I try to get away from them and turn one corner after another only to keep stumbling upon more giant icons looming above throngs of mesmerized people wearing tunics, hoods and masks. As I am pushed and shoved around I sense that the participants are all trying to absorb me into the crowd so that I will be converted into one of the hordes of zombies condemned to an eternity of watching the monotonous marches go...by...so...very...very...slowly.

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(George A. Romero could have a field day with this “false memory” of mine – not to mention Freud!)
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So, having experienced traditional Semana Santa events in the past, when this time of year rolls around I flatly refuse to go to places like Seville and Cadiz, which are supposed to have some of the "best" celebrations. No, I prefer to be on a beach somewhere in Catalonia.
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Hasta siempre amig@s,
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Carloz