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.