Day trips from Granada

A Moorish mountain village in the Alpujarras of Granada, whose very name predates the Spanish conquest and carries the traces of a people who held on to their language and faith long after the fall of the Kingdom of Granada.

A high mountain village in Granada's Alpujarra, once the seat of an ancient Moorish district and the flashpoint of a morisco uprising that shook the Kingdom of Granada.

A Moorish stronghold whose fall in 1482 triggered the final war of the Reconquista, Alhama de Granada still carries its history in the gorge, the Gothic-Renaissance church and the Roman baths that gave the town its name.

A Granada hill town whose surrounding landscape holds megalithic tombs, cave dwellings, and prehistoric settlements stretching back to 4500 BC, making it one of Andalucía's most layered archaeological territories.

A fortified hilltop city in Jaén, Andalucía, where a great Moorish fortress and a soaring Renaissance abbey church crown the same ridge, marking eight centuries of frontier history between Christian and Islamic Spain.

An ancient Andalucían city in Granada province where Phoenician, Roman, Moorish and Christian layers stack up in a single historic centre, from a ruined Roman theatre discovered under a car park to a cathedral four centuries in the making.

A Moorish castle town on the Granada coast where a volcanic rock that was once an island now rises above sugar-cane lowlands reclaimed from the sea.

An ancient Mediterranean port city in Granada's province, layered with Phoenician, Roman, and Moorish history, where a great fortress once blown up by the British still watches over a coastline of tropical fruit groves and fresh seafood.

A Moorish-rooted hilltop village in Málaga province, where an Arab castle once dominated the surrounding valleys and the legacy of three cultures, Muslim, Jewish, and Christian, is still written into the walls.

An Andalusian hilltop city in Córdoba province, its Moorish old quarter, Arab castle, and more than thirty listed heritage sites making it one of the most historically layered towns in the region.

A Moorish hilltop fortress, Gothic-mudéjar churches rising from converted mosques, and a whitewashed old town spreading across two facing hills above the Axarquía coast of Málaga.

Above the olive groves of Jaén, Martos rises around a dramatic rock, La Peña, crowned by a medieval castle and ringed by the walls and towers built by the Order of Calatrava to hold this frontier city against the Kingdom of Granada.

A Málaga hill town where Moorish castle walls, a perfectly preserved octagonal Baroque plaza, and centuries of layered history make it one of inland Andalucía's most architecturally distinctive stops.

A Jaén hilltop town whose castle, medieval street plan, and Visigothic treasure connect more than two thousand years of continuous human settlement in the olive-country heart of Andalucía.

Perched on a rocky outcrop in Córdoba province, Zuheros pairs a Moorish castle and a cave with fossil remains with the unhurried whitewashed streets of a classic Andalusian hill village.

A Córdoba hill town where Iberian lions, Moorish walls, and a castle-crowned old quarter trace more than two thousand years of continuous human settlement.

An ancient Bastetanian capital in Granada's high interior, where Moorish baths, a Renaissance palace, and the ruins of a once-impregnable alcazaba tell the story of a city that has changed hands, and faiths, across three thousand years.

A city in Córdoba province where Julius Caesar once fought, where Jews built a medieval quarter known as the Pearl of Sepharad, and where Granada's last emir ended up imprisoned in a castle tower.

A crossroads city in Málaga province, Antequera holds Spain's finest collection of megalithic tombs, a Moorish alcazaba, and more than fifty historic religious and civic buildings spread across a skyline shaped by 4,000 years of continuous occupation.

A hilltop town in Jaén where a Visigothic castle tower, a Renaissance episcopal palace, and a Plateresque church doorway mark three thousand years of continuous settlement in the Guadalquivir valley.

A UNESCO World Heritage city in Jaén, Andalucía, where Bronze Age foundations lie beneath Roman, Visigoth, Moorish, and Renaissance stone, all within a single historic centre.

A UNESCO World Heritage city in Jaén, Úbeda holds what archaeologists say is the oldest scientifically documented urban site in western Europe, surrounded by Renaissance palaces, medieval churches, and the layered stones of six thousand years of continuous human presence.

Perched in the mountains of Jaén, Cazorla holds two castles on a single hilltop, a ruined Renaissance church that became an open-air stage, and a history stretching from Iberian settlements to a medieval frontier lordship.

A hilltop town in Córdoba province where Ibero-Roman ruins, a medieval castle, and baroque churches trace two thousand years of contested history on the edge of the old Granadan frontier.

An industrial mining city in Jaén, Andalucía, built on the ruins of Cástulo, one of the ancient world's most strategically fought-over settlements, where Iberian, Carthaginian, and Roman ambitions collided over the same rich seams of metal.

A Córdoba town whose roots stretch from prehistoric flint-knappers to the birthplace of Spain's greatest Renaissance general, set among the vineyards of Andalucía.

A walled hilltop town in Jaén, Sabiote holds a Renaissance castle rebuilt by the secretary of Charles V, a near-complete medieval circuit of walls, and streets that have changed little since the 16th century.

A city on the Guadalquivir in Jaén with roots stretching from Iberian settlers through Roman prosperity, Moorish fortification, and Christian reconquest, home to a royal sanctuary and a painting by El Greco.

A Caliphate-era fortress whose seven towers gave a whole town its name, standing over the fertile Córdoba countryside on an ancient road between Córdoba and Jaén.

A town in Jaén, Andalucía, built around the Burgalimar castle and surrounded by olive groves, where Bronze Age settlements, medieval fortifications, and a string of hermitages mark out centuries of continuous habitation.

A hilltop town above the Málaga coast where a Phoenician sanctuary, a cave hermitage carved by hand, and Roman trade roads all converge in the same small stretch of whitewashed streets.

A hilltop town in Sevilla province where a walled Alcázar, a 40-metre Baroque tower, and a string of convents and churches crown the high ground above an old Roman road.

A small Málaga hill town built around sulphurous springs with legendary healing powers, its neoclassical spa, rock-cut bullring, and Moorish-revival town hall drawing curious visitors to the hills of Andalucía.

A white Andalucían town above a great meander of the Guadalquivir, its old quarter dense with Gothic-Mudéjar churches, noble stone doorways, and layers of history stretching back five thousand years to the edge of the Córdoba plain.

A hilltop medieval town in Jaén whose Arabic name means "castle" and whose car-free old streets, Islamic fortress ruins, and Renaissance church have earned it status as a protected historic ensemble.

A planned colonial town built from scratch in 1767 in the Sierra Morena mountains of Jaén, its grid streets and neoclassical palace still reflecting the 18th-century vision that created it.

A town with roots stretching back to dinosaur tracks and Iberian silver, its Arab castle, Visigothic temple, and medieval walls rising above the olive-covered hills of Jaén in northern Andalucía.

A planned Enlightenment town built from scratch in 1767 to populate the wilds of Córdoba, its grid streets, Baroque parish church, and Central European surnames still tell the story of King Carlos III's grand colonial experiment.

A Sevillian Renaissance town whose 16th-century count raised thirteen churches, a university, and a ducal pantheon in a single generation, leaving Osuna with one of the most ambitious concentrations of monumental architecture in southern Spain.

A city of baroque towers and Roman foundations on the Genil river in Sevilla province, where centuries of conquest and devotion left behind more convents per street than almost anywhere else in Andalucía.

A town in Almería with more than thirty thousand years of human presence, its baroque church facade, stately manor houses, and wide 18th-century streets marking it as one of Andalucía's more quietly ambitious provincial towns.

A Cádiz hill town carved literally into the rock face, where houses line the underside of a cliff above the river and a near-impregnable Nasrid castle stands watch over streets that changed hands seven times before finally falling to Castile in 1484.

Above the plains of Almería, Vélez-Blanco is defined by a Renaissance castle rising over an ancient Moorish quarter, a double-walled hillside town whose territory holds some of the most significant prehistoric rock art in Europe.

Ronda stands on a dramatic gorge in Málaga, its Moorish old quarter, Arab baths, ancient bullring, and an 18th-century bridge spanning a 100-metre drop to the river below making it one of Andalucía's most historically layered towns.

Perched high in the mountains of Jaén, Segura de la Sierra rises behind its ancient walls to a Mudéjar castle, its streets preserving the shape of a medieval town that passed through Greek, Roman, Arab, and Christian hands.