The patio serves as prelude to the residential area of the palace, built in the time of Pedro I around 1364. The name of Montería comes from the fact that it was here where king Pedro’s huntsmen gathered to go hunting. Today this space is set up as the main courtyard of the Palace and serves as distributor of the main spaces of the whole building. In Almohad times, in this place there was a ‘crucero’ garden (cross shaped). It is a typical Islamic garden, the cross-shaped garden is designed as a rectangular space that is divided by two walkable sidewalks that intersect perpendicularly at the center, forming a cross in which center there is usually a fountain. In the corners four sunken parterres host vegetation like orange trees, so that the tops are up to the level of the people who walk along the platforms. This garden, with its four platforms along which the water usually runs, is reminiscent of the descriptions of the four rivers of Eden. This gives the Islamic garden the capability of introducing itself as an image of paradise. At least, of a portion of it on Earth.