Albaicin
UNESCO World Heritage Site (Alhambra, Generalife And Albayzin, Inscribed 1984), The Moorish Quarter Of Granada, Retaining Its Pre 1492 Street Plan And Its Carmen Houses · Granada, Andalusia
The old Moorish quarter of Granada, on the hill facing the Alhambra across a ravine, and the reason Granada has no separate city row in this database: the Alhambra outranks the town, so the quarter gets the row instead. The Albaicin is what was left when the city surrendered in 1492 - a street plan that has not been rationalised since, narrow lanes climbing between whitewashed walls, and carmenes, the walled houses with hidden gardens and cisterns that are invisible from the street and are the whole architectural point. There are surviving Moorish gates, a set of cisterns under the streets, and about twenty public wells. Above it Sacromonte holds the cave houses. The one thing everybody comes for is the Mirador de San Nicolas at sunset, where the Alhambra sits against the Sierra Nevada, and it is genuinely worth the crowd it draws. Walk up rather than taking the minibus, and get lost on the way.
Mirador de San Nicolas, Granada, Andalusia, 18010, Spain
NO OPENING TIME HERE WAS CHECKED, and the quarter has none: the Albaicin is a residential neighbourhood, the lanes are public and the Mirador de San Nicolas is an open square, free at any hour and lit after dark. What has hours are the small ticketed sites - El Banuelo, the Moorish houses and the Sacromonte museum - which keep short daytime hours with a midday break and several Monday closures. The C31 and C32 minibuses run through the day and are jammed at sunset.