If you depart for Andalucía under the assumption you'll see tiny whitewashed villages with bougainvillea spilling over balconies, gypsies noisily hawking their wares, tapas bars on every street, dramatic bullfights, and improvisational flamenco performances in town squares, well, you won't be disappointed. Spain's southernmost region embraces all these clichés with good humor not because they attract tourists, but because this is how Andalucíans have been living for centuries.

This mountainous area is inextricably linked to the Moors, who occupied Andalucía for 700 years. The Moors' imprint is permanent, from the countryside's terraced farming to the cities' flowering patios, and from the dazzling Arab mosques to the passionate joie de vivre and smoldering eyes of the Andalucían people. Although the Moors were driven back to North Africa in 1492, they haven't strayed far. It's said that Morocco is so close to Spain's southern coast that you can hear early-morning Muslim prayers drifting in broken waves over the Strait of Gibraltar like a fading radio station. Never forgetting the past, Moor descendants in Morocco still squint north across the narrow waterway that separates their country from Spain and pine for their ancestors' breathtaking homeland, their al-Andalus.

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