15 Granada Hotels, Two of Them Inside the Alhambra Walls
The convent where Isabella and Ferdinand first lay, the 1910 palace hotel where Lorca read his poems, the house where he was arrested in 1936, and Nasrid and Renaissance houses up the Albaicín.
Granada’s hotels climb from the Darro up both hills, and two of them sit inside the Alhambra itself. This list has the Parador, in the convent where Isabella and Ferdinand lay until 1521, the Alhambra Palace, opened in 1910 with the king present and the stage where Lorca read in 1922, the Reina Cristina, the Rosales family house where Lorca was arrested in August 1936, and Casa Morisca, a fifteenth-century Nasrid house at the foot of the Albaicín.
The list is grouped by character, not ranked. Each hotel’s name links to its own site, so you see the current rate and book direct.
On the Alhambra hill
Parador de Granada · Alhambra hill (inside the Alhambra walls)
The Parador occupies the Franciscan convent of San Francisco, founded in 1495 by the Catholic Monarchs on the site of a Nasrid palace inside the Alhambra walls. Isabella I, who died in 1504, and Ferdinand II, who died in 1516, lay in its chapel until their transfer to the Royal Chapel in 1521. It became a Parador in 1945, and Paradores presents it as the most sought-after hotel in its network.
Hotel Alhambra Palace · Alhambra hill
The Alhambra Palace was built by Julio Quesada-Cañaveral, Duke of San Pedro de Galatino, and inaugurated on 1 January 1910 with King Alfonso XIII present. Modesto Cendoya, then the Alhambra’s conservation architect, designed it in the neo-Moorish style. Federico García Lorca gave a public poetry reading in the hotel’s small theatre in 1922, in the run-up to the Concurso de Cante Jondo he organised with Manuel de Falla.
Hotel América · Alhambra hill (inside the Alhambra walls)
The América is one of only two hotels inside the Alhambra precinct, on the Calle Real de la Alhambra beside the Parador. The same family has run it since 1936, by the hotel’s own account, with the rooms set around a vine-shaded patio where the house restaurant serves lunch.
Áurea Washington Irving · Alhambra hill / Paseo del Generalife
The Washington Irving is named for the American writer whose Tales of the Alhambra, published in 1832, made the hill a Romantic pilgrimage. The nineteenth-century grand hotel on the Paseo del Generalife closed and stood derelict through the 2000s. Grupo Hotusa reopened it in 2016 after a full restoration as the Eurostars Washington Irving, and it now trades under the group’s Áurea label.
Carmen de la Alcubilla del Caracol · Realejo / Alhambra slope
The Alcubilla del Caracol is a carmen, Granada’s walled hillside house-and-garden, on Calle Aire Alta on the Alhambra’s southern slope. Its terraced gardens look over the Realejo to the Sierra Nevada. The name refers to an alcubilla, a water-distribution tank of the Alhambra’s historic supply system, by the house’s account.
Albaicín houses and the Darro
Hotel Casa Morisca · Albaicín (Cuesta de la Victoria, by the Darro)
Casa Morisca is a late fifteenth-century Nasrid-era house at the foot of the Albaicín, with a patio pool and wooden galleries. Its architect owners restored it and opened it as a hotel in the late 1990s, and the restoration won a Europa Nostra heritage award.
Hotel Palacio de Santa Inés · Albaicín
The Palacio de Santa Inés is a sixteenth-century palace house on the Cuesta de Santa Inés, a few minutes above the Darro. The Renaissance frescoes in its patio are attributed by the hotel to the circle of Julio Aquiles and Alexander Mayner, the Italians who painted the Alhambra’s Peinador de la Reina. Mudéjar coffered ceilings and a two-tier columned patio survive from the original house.
Hotel Santa Isabel la Real · Albaicín (upper)
Santa Isabel la Real occupies a sixteenth-century house in the upper Albaicín, by the hotel’s account, with rooms around a columned patio a short walk from the Mirador de San Nicolás. Its neighbour, the Monastery of Santa Isabel la Real, was founded by Queen Isabella in 1501 on the grounds of the Nasrid palace of Dar al-Horra.
Hotel Casa del Capitel Nazarí · Albaicín (Cuesta Aceituneros, off Plaza Nueva)
The Casa del Capitel Nazarí stands on the Cuesta Aceituneros, the lane climbing from Plaza Nueva into the Albaicín. The hotel dates the Renaissance palace house to 1503 and takes its name from a fourteenth-century Nasrid column capital reused in its patio among Roman and Renaissance columns.
Hotel Palacio de Mariana Pineda · Paseo de los Tristes / Darro (Carrera del Darro)
The Palacio de Mariana Pineda is a seventeenth-century palace on the Carrera del Darro, run as a hotel-museum with its own collection of furniture and paintings. The hotel presents the house as the birthplace of Mariana Pineda, born in 1804 and executed in Granada in 1831 for embroidering a liberal flag; Lorca’s play about her premiered in 1927.
Palaces, convents and the Lorca trail in the lower city
Hotel Reina Cristina · Centro (Calle Tablas, near Plaza de la Trinidad)
The Reina Cristina occupies the former home of the Rosales family on Calle Tablas, where Federico García Lorca took refuge in August 1936. He was arrested in this house on 16 August 1936, days before his execution. The hotel keeps the room he used and displays Lorca memorabilia.
Hotel Palacio de Santa Paula, Autograph Collection · Gran Vía
The Palacio de Santa Paula is built around the sixteenth-century Convent of Santa Paula on the Gran Vía de Colón, with the cloister as its courtyard. The complex also takes in a twelfth-century Moorish house and a nineteenth-century mansion, by the hotel’s account. AC Hotels opened it in 2003, and it later moved into Marriott’s Autograph Collection.
Hospes Palacio de los Patos · Centro (Solarillo de Gracia, near Puerta Real)
The Palacio de los Patos is a nineteenth-century palace with a walled garden on the Solarillo de Gracia, a few minutes from Puerta Real. Hospes opened it in 2005, pairing the palace with a new wing clad in alabaster; the garden restaurant sits under the palace’s old palms.
Gar Anat Hotel Boutique · Realejo
Gar Anat stands on the Placeta de los Peregrinos in the Realejo, the city’s old Jewish quarter. The hotel dates its house to the seventeenth century; Gar Anat is the medieval Arabic name for Granada. Each room is themed on a writer who wrote about the city, with their words on the walls.
Hotel Palacio de los Navas · Realejo (Calle Navas)
The Palacio de los Navas is a sixteenth-century palace on Calle Navas, built around a columned patio behind the original stone portal, by the hotel’s account. Calle Navas is the Realejo’s tapas street, a block from the Ayuntamiento.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are these hotels ranked?
No. The groups sort them by character, and the order within each group carries no meaning.
What made a hotel interesting enough for this list?
A story. Every entry was a house on the Alhambra hill with a documented past, a Nasrid or Renaissance house in the Albaicín, or a palace, convent or Lorca house in the lower city. Comfort alone did not qualify.
Why are there no prices?
Rates change daily and a priced list goes stale in a month. Each hotel’s name links to its own site, so you see the current rate and book direct.
Should I stay on the Alhambra hill or in the Albaicín?
The Alhambra hill puts you at the palace gates before the day crowds arrive, with a walk or a minibus down to the city. The Albaicín puts you in the lanes with the view across to the Alhambra, on steep cobbles that taxis cannot always reach. The lower city hotels sit flat, by the cathedral, the tapas bars and the buses.
Which hotel puts me closest to the day trips on this site?
Most day trips from Granada run to the Sierra Nevada, the Alpujarras, Córdoba, Nerja and the coast, or Guadix. The lower-city hotels around Gran Vía and Puerta Real sit closest to the coach pickups and the bus station.