Granada is layered like nowhere else in Spain: Zirid baths from 1050, a Nasrid merchants' inn of 1336, the lead coffins of the monarchs who ended Al-Andalus in 1492, and the house where Lorca was arrested in 1936. Three days following that thread.
Built around 1050 under the Zirid dynasty, among the oldest surviving Islamic baths in Spain. Star-shaped skylights pierce the brick vaults, and the marble columns were recycled from Roman and Visigothic buildings.
The 15th-century palace where Aixa, mother of Boabdil, lived after Sultan Muley Hacén abandoned her for Zoraya. A miniature Alhambra: courtyard pool, carved wooden ceilings and a mirador looking over the entire Albaicín.
Granada's only surviving Nasrid caravanserai, built around 1336 as a warehouse and inn for foreign merchants. After 1492 it became a coal yard, then a comedy theatre, then a tenement. The horseshoe-arched entrance and stucco are original.
The Zirid wall of 1013 still climbs the ridge above the Albaicín. Puerta Monaita and the Puerta de Elvira mark the gates of the 11th-century city, decades older than anything on the Alhambra hill opposite.
Isabella and Ferdinand ordered this late-Gothic chapel in 1504. They lie in plain lead coffins in the crypt below Fancelli's Carrara marble monument, beside Juana la Loca and Felipe el Hermoso. Isabella's crown and sceptre sit in the sacristy.
Begun in 1523 on the footprint of Granada's main mosque and switched from Gothic to Renaissance by Diego de Siloé in 1528. The circular capilla mayor, 45 metres high, was designed as a royal mausoleum before the Capilla Real took that role.
The first Christian monastery founded in Granada after the conquest. Its church became the mausoleum of the Gran Capitán, Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, whose tomb lies before a vast carved retablo covered in battle scenes and armour.
Founded by Isabella in 1504 for plague and syphilis patients, now the University of Granada's main library. Renaissance courtyards, Mudéjar coffered ceilings and a 1637 façade stand on ground that was the city's Muslim cemetery.
Started in 1506 and worked on for three centuries. The Baroque sacristy of 1713-1747 is a white storm of stucco and marquetry, while paintings of Carthusians martyred in Tudor England line the cloister as Counter-Reformation propaganda.
Built after 1600 above the caves where the Lead Books of Sacromonte were unearthed in 1595 — forged Arabic relics naming St Cecilio as Granada's first bishop, written to protect the Morisco community. Catacombs and Baroque church included.
Federico García Lorca's family summer house, where he drafted parts of Bodas de Sangre and was arrested in August 1936 weeks before being shot near Alfacar. His piano, desk and posters remain exactly as the family left them.
A 1530s fortified mansion in the old Jewish quarter, built by the Granada Venegas family — Nasrid nobles who converted after 1492. Named for the muskets on its battlements; inside, a gilded ceiling of Spanish heroes asserts the new order.