---
node: spot_granada_albaicin
type: spot
slug: albaicin
destination: dest_granada
title: "Albaicín"
lead: "The Albaicín is the old Moorish quarter of Granada, a hillside of whitewashed houses and walled gardens facing the Alhambra across the Darro valley. Its street plan is the medieval one and has never been regularised."
published: 2026-08-12
updated: 2026-08-12
image_file: spot_granada_albaicin.jpg
image_source: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:San_Gregorio,_barrio_del_Albaic%C3%ADn_(Granada).jpg"
image_author: "Jl FilpoC"
image_license: "CC BY 4.0"
---

## Overview

The quarter kept its Muslim population after 1492 until the expulsions of the seventeenth century, and the lanes, cisterns and carmen houses — a house with a walled garden — are what that continuity left. The Mirador de San Nicolás is the viewpoint everyone is sent to, and it deserves it: the Alhambra sits opposite with the Sierra Nevada behind. Below, Carrera del Darro runs along the river past two Moorish bath houses.

## Highlights

Walk up through the Carrera del Darro and come down another way; the lanes are steep, cobbled and unmarked, and that is the pleasure. San Nicolás at sunset is crowded and worth it; San Miguel Alto, twenty minutes higher, has the same view and a tenth of the people. Wear shoes with grip — the cobbles are polished and slick after rain.