Things to do in Granada

Landmark · On the Sabika hill above the city

The Nasrid palace-city, its fortress and its summer gardens — the most complete surviving medieval Islamic palace complex anywhere.

Local tip: Residents' trick: the Alcazaba and the Generalife gardens are on a general ticket that is far easier to get than the Nasrid Palaces slot, and the gardens at opening time in April are the best hour the monument has. There is also a free-access route through the Bosque de la Alhambra and up past the Puerta de la Justicia, which is how locals walk up.

Neighborhood · The hill facing the Alhambra

A UNESCO-listed medieval Moorish quarter of walled carmen houses and cobbled cuestas, running up into the cave dwellings of Sacromonte.

Local tip: San Nicolás is the famous viewpoint and is crowded from mid-afternoon. San Miguel Alto is twenty minutes further up, higher, and has a fraction of the people. Sacromonte's zambra is the local flamenco form and the caves that still run family shows are worth choosing over the polished venues below.

Culture · Central, off Gran Vía

The mausoleum of Ferdinand and Isabella beside Granada's Renaissance cathedral, in the streets of the old silk market.

Local tip: The Capilla Real is the one people skip on their way to the Alhambra and it is the more historically loaded building of the two — the Catholic Monarchs chose to be buried in the city whose conquest completed the Reconquista. The Alcaicería lanes beside it are the surviving fragment of the Nasrid silk bazaar.

Food · South of the Alhambra hill

The old Jewish quarter turned into the city's best eating and drinking district, built up the lower slope with street art on half the walls.

Local tip: This is where the free-tapa rule is at its best. Order a drink and the kitchen decides — and if you want the good tapa, sit at the bar rather than a table, and go to the same place twice. Campo del Príncipe fills with students on warm evenings and the terraces run late.

Nature · 32 km south-east, about 45 minutes by road

Europe's southernmost and Spain's highest ski resort, on a national park massif topped by the 3,479-metre Mulhacén — mainland Spain's highest peak.

Local tip: The season is genuinely long because of the altitude, and the resort is close enough that half-day skiing after a morning of work is an ordinary thing to do here. The A-395 is a fast road but chains or winter tyres become obligatory when the signs say so, and the ski-bus from Granada's Palacio de Congresos saves the parking problem entirely.

Nature · Monachil, 10 km from the city

A river gorge with hanging bridges, sheer overhangs and a chain-assisted scramble, twenty minutes from the centre.

Local tip: Almost every visitor drives past it on the way to Sierra Nevada and never stops. The lower route is an easy family walk; the upper one involves a suspension bridge and a squeeze through a rock passage. Park in Monachil village rather than at the trailhead, which fills by nine on any weekend.