Granada Is One of Spain's Hidden Jewels-With Incredible Tapas, Lush Gardens, and Thrilling Flamenco

"The rain came early that winter and didn't stop. Scotland, where I live, is known for its miserable weather, but this was something different. The pavements were peppered with deep puddles, and grassy areas wilted into mud. It felt as though we hadn't seen the sun in months. I would sit in my apartment, watching droplets trickle down the windows, and find myself googling Andalusia-checking the weather there, looking at photos of sunny plazas and orange trees."

"Friends had described the city as the jewel of southern Spain. I knew it to be a historic center of Muslim and Jewish culture and the home of the Alhambra, but I learned that it had an even richer heritage. It is known for flamenco music and dance, for tapas, and as the hometown of the celebrated poet and playwright Federico García Lorca."

"In April, we landed in Málaga and rode the train an hour and a half inland. I had read that the Italian filmmaker Sergio Leone's "spaghetti westerns" were filmed not in the American West but outside Granada, in the Tabernas Desert, and I was expecting an arid landscape of sand and stone. I couldn't have been more wrong. In springtime, the fields were verdant and the hills were covered with thousands of olive trees."

A couple left rainy, sunless Scotland and longed for Andalusian sunshine. They had previously visited Málaga and Seville but had not seen Granada. They researched Granada's cultural heritage, including the Alhambra, flamenco, tapas, and Federico García Lorca, and then booked flights. In April they landed in Málaga and took a train an hour and a half inland toward Granada. Expecting arid desert scenes near Tabernas, they found verdant spring fields and thousands of olive trees. Arrival in Granada revealed snowcapped mountains around an ancient city and bright, dry heat replacing Scottish gray.

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