Sacromonte

Sacromonte, sometimes also called Sacramonte is a traditional neighbourhood of the eastern area of the city of Granada in Andalusia, Spain. It is one of the six neighbourhoods that make up the urban district Albayzín and limits with the neighbourhoods of Albayzín, San Pedro, Realejo-San Matías, El Fargue and Haza Grande. In 2009 had 578 inhabitants.

It is located on the hill and valley of Valparaíso, in front of the Alhambra, emblematic places of Granada, occupying both banks of the Darro River, whose name seems to derive the phrase "D'auro" ("of gold") for its famous gold-bearing sediments.

It is the traditional neighborhood of the Granadian Gipsies, who settled in Granada after the Christian conquest of the city in 1492. It is one of the most picturesque neighborhoods of the city, by the landscape and its cave houses, installed in whitewashed caves.

The gypsies of Sacromonte have a dialect, "Calé", which is currently little used. It's derived, according to tradition, from India, from where the gypsies (or Roma), originated. The Roma of Sacromonte were portrayed by the poet Federico García Lorca in his book of poems Romancero Gitano.

The neighborhood owes its name to the episode occurred between 1595 and 1599 on the hill of Valparaíso: the alleged discovery of relics and the so-called lead books or "lead books the Sacromonte" with indecipherable drawings, texts in Latin and Arabic characters that came to be interpreted as the fifth gospel. These findings were declared a forgery in the 17th century, but led to the construction of the Abbey of Sacromonte, where today are the alleged relics of Saint Caecilius, co-patron of Granada and the lead books.

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