Dazzling Cartuja is Granada's hidden gem (and crowd-free)

The combination of anguish and triumphalism in the art of Catholic Spain always leaves me uncomfortable in the country's churches.

I find it neither surprising nor alien ... I am, after all, the product of 14-years of convent education ... but it’s still disturbing. The gory martyrdoms, wailing virgins and brooding colour schemes speak of a faith that’s all about guilt and pain. The ridiculous amounts of gold and silver are, to anyone moderately familiar with history, a reminder of the rape of the Americas. The infidels being vanquished beneath the swords, spears and hooves of the Reconquista make me think of the outsiders who went to their deaths on the bonfires of the Inquisition, and wonder if our current battles with Islamic fundamentalism would be quite so bad had the Spanish Catholics been more gracious in victory.

That’s why I find Granada’s cathedral and, to a lesser extent, its famous royal tombs, difficult to love. And why, surprisingly, I discovered my favourite post-Reconquista sight in the city’s Carthusian monastery (photo above). Both are masterpieces that deserve a visit, but neither should be approached lightly.

The cathedral was a monumental political statement from its inception. The conquering Catholics tore down the city's main mosque and covered it with this. Considering the wonders of the palaces of the Alhambra and the mosque-turned-cathedral in Cordoba, I shudder to imagine the beauty destroyed to make a political statement. It might have been worth it had the replacement been better, but Granada's cathedral is more concerned with power than aesthetics. The front is a triple triumphal arch, squat, graceless and far too heavy for the space it occupies. Inside, the white interior and the vaults decorated with swirls of tracery could be delicate, were it not for the disproportionate supporting columns. These things are huge bundles of columns that block views and dominate the scene. Was it intentional that they reminded me most of the fasces, the bundle of rods that indicated a magistrate's power in ancient Rome and has often been used as a symbol for domination?

I've never seen anything quite like the space behind and above the high altar. Circular galleries rise in successive stories, showing off paintings of saints and martyrs. Interesting as an art gallery, but it didn't really work for me in a sacred space. The altar itself was dominated by a solid silver tabernacle almost the size of a garden folly. A lovely classical temple beneath which crouching angels held up the container for the host. In a simpler environment it would have been the masterpiece around which the whole church was built; here it was almost lost amidst visual shouting from all the competing elements. The compulsory religious gore included a life-sized, anatomically perfect, recently removed head of St. John the Baptist bleeding out onto a silver platter, and a shrine of Santiago de Compostela with the saint ... live-sized again ... in combat armour on horseback, his steed about to kill the Muslim knight below with a hoof to the throat. (How Saint James, a Judean who died soon after Jesus, ended up dressed for and involved in a 15th century battle is one of those inexplicable mysteries of Catholicism.)

There are, naturally, little moments of magnificence throughout. In front of the altar there's a twin pair of organs built between columns, facing each other over the main aisle. They're white and gold, light and festive, and I'd love to hear them duel it out. A monumental door frame capped with Moorish-style woodwork nods to history. In the ambulatory (the semi-circular aisle fringed with side altars that circles the main altar and forms the back of the church) glass cases display exquisite illuminated manuscripts. And one side altar, a baroque symphony of rose, black and white marble with a poignant, but not gruesome, pieta is the best thing in the cathedral.

The royal tombs next door are a more satisfying ensemble, thanks to their earlier Gothic architecture, though they still have their frightening martyrdoms. (Don't miss Saint Vitus placidly enduring his boiling cauldron.) You can read what I wrote about them last year here. The cathedral and the tombs cost £5 each; if strapped for time or cash prioritise the tombs. But if you're really working to a short list, skip them both and head to the Cartuja de Granada.

One of the girls on the trip had a hot tip from people who used to live here that this was the most amazing thing in town and must be seen. How could it be, if none of us had ever heard of it? But our sources were quite passionate in their endorsement, so we hopped a taxi and investigated. Initial impressions were underwhelming.

The church sits in a commanding position on a hillside, its architecture stolid and a bit grim. (The view from the plaza outside the front door, however, is remarkable.) You'll start in the cloisters. Standard layout, minimal decoration, basic garden with some pretty patterned pavements. In to the refectories; long, plain white halls with gracious Gothic vaults where monks (in one hall) and affiliated lay brothers (in another) would eat a basic meal without conversation while they listened to scripture and contemplated paintings of martyrs. It appeared there was no escaping. The set of canvasses on English martyrs in the monk's hall was particularly horrific. Who knew Henry VIII and Cromwell had tortured with such creativity? There are priests being dragged behind teams of horses, taking axes in the head, having their hearts ripped out and in one particularly gruesome scene, being hung from a tree and butchered into halves like a pig. All this in the dining room. While it does put the Anglo-Hispanic tensions of the 16th and 17th centuries in context, it's hard going. I was afraid the horror show would continue in the church, but there things quickly started to improve.

The nave is a festival of white with gold accents, three-dimensional with statues, ornate plaster cornices and foliate decoration. It's like a wedding cake turned inside-out, designed on a religious theme. A painting of Mary triumphant over an intricately-carved wooden door starts to add colour, and there's more in the choir screen. It's a pastiche of paintings, multi-coloured marble, gold and a striking pair of wooden doors in the geometric inlay that is the Granada style. You get a peek at an even more ornate high altar through them. Had we been visitors to an active monastery, this is as close as we would get. But old divisions don't exist for tourists.

Once in the choir you can fully appreciate the explosion into the fantastical that is the high altar. A life-sized-Mary rules the heavens from her perch on the crescent moon, framed by barley-twist gold columns inset with lozenges of crystal to add a star-like glimmer. Putti frolic everywhere. The ornate decoration on the walls above and beside her, rather than the white of the rest of the church, is now drenched in cheerful pastels. Directly behind her is a wall of glass ... is it mirrors? ... that adds to the glitter. This is the 17th century equivalent of coming out of the dark into a room of strobe lights. Everything is intended to dazzle you into a state of awe.

Just off to the left, you'll find the sacristy, where sacred vestments were stored and priests got dressed for mass. It's big and ornate enough to be a church in its own right, and the decoration is so opulent it takes your brain some time to process it. Every white plaster column is encrusted with swirls, curlicues, flares and pinnacles.  The ceiling writhes with decorated coffers and swags of flowers. The crazy density of the decoration reminded me of a Hindu temple though, looking closer to home, one suspected these artisans were trying to meet and out-do the effect of the Halls of the Two Sisters and the Abencerrajes in the Nasrid Palaces.

And this is all just background. Add multi-coloured inlaid marble cladding to the first five feet of the room, then extend it up into a complex masterpiece of an altar. Add a few paintings on the walls, and a dome above the altar painted with a heavenly scene. Then, just to make sure there are no undecorated spaces, bring in more geometric inlay to cover the chests where you keep the robes (a masterpiece on their own), and the doors in and out. The only plain thing in the room is the glass in the mirrors above the chests, angled down to help the priests' dress. But, of course, they just reflect the surroundings.

Neither altar or sacristy, however, are the most magnificent part of this place. Move behind the altar to check out that wall of glass. They aren't mirrors, but clear, beveled panes that have refracted and broadcast the magnificence of what stands behind. All churches have a tabernacle to house the communion bread and wine, usually a model of a temple sat on the high altar. Here, the tabernacle has its own chapel. And it's a blockbuster.

It's a testament to the marble-worker's art; a score of different colours and patterns carved into exuberant shapes and fitted together seamlessly. There's a heavenly host of near life-sized saints and angels. No martyrdoms depicted here (though there are martyrs); everyone is in a mood of joyous celebration. Gold encrusts frames and column capitals. Fat putti dart in and out of every decorative element. The dome and pendentives above are painted in a blaze of yellows, pinks and blues, inviting you to a heaven of eternal joy and sunlight. Ironically, only Saint Bruno, the founder of the Carthusian order, looks unhappy in the heavenly scene. It's as if all the happiness is too much for him.

This room is on par with the greatest masterpieces of Baroque art and reminds me most of the joyous madness of the Asamkirche in Munich, my favourite thing in that whole city. It is awesome, in its original awe-inspiring, knock-you-to-your knees meaning.

The Cartuja is likely to strike the modern mind as a monument to hypocrisy. How unfair that the common folk and lesser monks lived on a diet of martyrdom, fear and inferior decorative schemes, while the guys in charge got to get close to, and enter, some of the most beautiful rooms in the city? How could they preach a life of austerity, yet build this for themselves? This is where Catholic education becomes useful, because it all makes perfect sense to me.

The architecture is a metaphor for life. The outer bits are our everyday striving. The closer we get to the altar, the closer we are to heaven. In a religion that believes literally that the consecrated bread and wine is the body and blood of Jesus, the tabernacle becomes the space where God lives. That chapel is, literally, heaven. The artists and architects who built it were doing their best to bring it to life on earth, and to give anyone who saw it a taste of the reward they were working for. This is what the Baroque movement was all about. And why I'd never make it as a protestant.