Granada historic centre
Granada guides
This is everything we have written about the city, ordered by what you need to sort out and not by when we published it. 10 guides: getting here and parking, choosing an area to sleep in, eating, going out at night, what to see and in what order to see it.
We are not a tourist guide. We run 10 apartments at 5 addresses in the old town, and what we know about Granada we know by repetition: the same questions, week after week. When a fact comes from an official source, the guide cites it at the end with its address. When we have not been able to check something, we do not write it.
Getting here and getting around
You can drive to the door, but not without clearance, and there are two different regimes that get mixed up all the time: the access control, which reads your number plate, and the Low Emission Zone, which reads your emissions sticker. If you are driving here, start with this.
- Driving to Granada city centre: the real guide You can drive in, with conditions. The route the council publishes for our building, and the controls that fine you.
- Where to park in Granada Which parts of the centre have restricted access, when you pay for the blue zone and where a car with no emissions sticker can park.
Where to stay
Which neighbourhood suits whom, measured by what really decides a booking: noise, hills, cobbles, suitcases and whether the car gets there or not. Including when the honest answer is that this area is not the one for you.
- Granada neighbourhoods: what each one is really like Albaicín, Sacromonte, Realejo, Centro, Zaidín and Ronda: what each neighbourhood is like, which district it belongs to and how you get from one to the next.
- Where to stay in Granada: which neighbourhood to choose Centro, Albaicín, Realejo, Sacromonte and Gran Vía compared on what actually decides a booking: noise, hills, suitcases, car access and measured distances.
Eating
How the free tapa works here, what you actually pay for, which streets you go to for tapas and what each of the dishes you will see on the menus is.
- Tapas in Granada: how the free tapa works The tapa comes with the drink and every bar does it its own way. How the system works, whether you pick it or they bring you one, and which areas to go to.
- Typical food in Granada: what each dish is and when it is eaten What you eat here rather than where: which of the dishes you will see on the menus really are from the city, which ones are seasonal and which one you can take home in your suitcase.
Going out at night
Where people go out, until what time and — this matters far more than it sounds if you are going to sleep in the centre — what you can hear from where.
Itineraries
What order to see the city in when it is your Alhambra ticket, and not you, that fixes the time, and what to do with the rest of the day.
What to see
The places, and what it takes to get to them: how much of a climb it really is, where you go in and what is worth having sorted before you turn up.
- Granada's Albaicín: what to see and how to walk it The medieval quarter UNESCO added to the Alhambra listing in 1994, told from the bottom of the hill: what to see, how not to get lost and where you go in.
- Mirador de San Nicolás: what the climb actually costs 630 m from our door in a straight line, but 65 m higher and all uphill through the Albaicín. How to get up, what it really costs and when to go.
And if you already know what you are after
If you would rather read it straight through than pick from a list, the same questions are answered one after another — with the table of distances measured from our own front door — in visit Granada.
If what you want is the flat itself: the comparison of all 10 apartments, with capacity, floor area and address, is in the guide to tourist apartments in Granada. The breakdown of what is how many metres from each of our front doors is in apartments in Granada city centre. And the full collection, with photos of each one, in the list of apartments.
Is something missing that we should have written, or are you coming with a case none of these guides solves? Write to us from the contact page and we will answer by WhatsApp, phone or email.