Best Day Trips and Excursions from Granada

Around and near the city of Granada you have many options to get away for a day. Whether you like the sea or the mountains, the province has everything for all tastes. A very complete biodiversity, with many different climates and geographies to delight the senses. If you need to disconnect from the city and visit other places during your vacations in Granada, the options are many and varied.

Visiting the Alpujarra

This mountainous area at the foot of the Sierra Nevada was the last refuge of the Muslims expelled by Isabella the Catholic. Its villages stand out for their characteristic white color and for keeping intact all the Berber charm in the middle of an idyllic landscape and perfect for hiking trails, with many itineraries and sites to discover. The most convenient and fastest option is to rent a car for a day; it takes less than two hours to get there by road. Buses are infrequent and take longer to arrive. The ideal time to visit the Alpujarra is autumn, when it is neither too hot nor too cold.

We recommend the following routes: Barranco de Poqueira, with an elevation gain of 600 meters and which runs through the three most famous white villages in the area (Pampaneira, Capileira and Bubión) and where you can taste Arabic food and learn about the art of carpet weaving; the Sendero de las Acequias, more accessible and shaded, with places of great beauty and of great historical value; and the Sendero de las Encinas, about 5 kilometers ideal for those who do not have much time and want to go through the old Camino Real that linked Granada with Almeria.

The fun Cascamorras Festival in Baza

The town of Baza is less than an hour’s drive from Granada and an hour and a half by bus. And every September it celebrates a curious festival with a verbena. Its origins date back centuries, when a character called Cascamorras wanted to steal the statue of the patron saint of the town and the citizens, to prevent him, chased him everywhere, staining it with black, until they managed to throw him out. Nowadays, this memory has become the Cascamorras Festival and everyone ends up smeared with black paint and drinking in the street to celebrate. This takes place every September 6 and is a free activity to which we recommend you wear old clothes to get dirty without problems.

A refreshing swim at the tropical coast

The beaches of Granada have the particularity of having a tropical microclimate that is unique in Spain, very humid and hot, perfect for a refreshing swim in the sea. You will discover a surprising enclave between mountains and tropical valleys, where avocados and mangos are grown. An hour by car or an hour and a quarter by bus from Granada you can visit the coasts of Motril, Carchuna, Salobreña, Almuñecar and other nearby towns. It is a perfect plan to spend the day, especially if you are with children.

Visit the interpretation center of Gorafe

An hour’s drive from the city of Granada is the village of Gorafe, a unique jewel in the province: its megalithic interpretation center, with ten necropolises and 240 Neolithic dolmens. You will be able to enjoy a journey through the most ancient history of the region through several itineraries. It is one of the largest concentrations of prehistoric burial mounds in Europe. There are hiking and biking trails in the surrounding area. It is located in a privileged position, with a viewpoint overlooking the landscape in gullies of clay and sandy soils, with reddish and pinkish tones.

White Blackbird recreation area

A perfect getaway for the whole family to enjoy the scenery of the Sierra Nevada without being obliged to hire a ski pass. In the Mirlo Blanco recreation area, visitors can have fun in the snow in an amusement park full of activities for young and old: ice rink, snow slides, bike-skiing, Russian sledding, a snow roller coaster and much more. Admission is free, but there are some attractions, such as the Russian luge, which are fee-based. It can be reached by car in only 30 minutes and there are also direct buses to the Mirlo Blanco area from Granada station, which take approximately 40 minutes.

National Park Sierra Nevada with skiing or Mulhacén

Snow sports lovers find in Sierra Nevada one of the best places to ski or snowboard, for prices ranging from 30 € to 40 € a day for the ski pass. The natural park has more than 160,000 hectares of biodiversity and a rich cultural and historical heritage, with a great variety of flora and fauna and all ecosystems: high mountain pastures, deciduous forests and Mediterranean scrub. And the big attraction for climbers is the Mulhacén peak which, with its almost 3500 meters high, is the highest in the Iberian Peninsula and the second highest in Spain. You can drive from Granada and be at the entrance of the national park in little more than an hour.

Guadix

At 45 kilometers from Granada, between clay and arid hills, stands an authentic troglodyte village, famous for its cave houses built directly from excavations in the mountain. It is very interesting in Guadix the neighborhood of the Hermitages, many of which are now accommodations for tourism. Another interesting point is the old Alcazaba, which served to defend the city and was built in the eleventh century on top of the Cathedral, another building of great heritage value. It takes 50 minutes by car and 1 hour and 5 minutes by bus with the Alsa company, which leaves from Granada station.

Amazon Adventure in Viznar

At 1 hour by bus or 20 minutes by car from Granada is the village of Viznar, in the heart of the Sierra de Huétor Natural Park. There you can live an Amazonian experience, with zip lines through the treetops and in the middle of nature, to have a lot of fun with the family. There are a total of 75 games in the trees and 22 zip lines distributed in 5 adventure circuits: Minikids, Kids, Explorer, Adventure and Sport and 2 Initiation circuits. Everything is designed so that all ages can find their challenges and have fun. The adult ticket costs 21 ¤ and is payable from 16 years of age; then there is the ticket for Juniors (people from 1.35 meters in height and under 16 years of age) at 19 ¤ and children from 6 years of age and between 1.15 meters to 1.34 meters in height pay 16 ¤.

The natural wealth of the Granada Geopark

The Geopark stands out for being a semi-desert formation that is surrounded by the Sierra Nevada and has one of the most important continental fossil records in the world. An ideal place to do all kinds of outdoor activities such as cycling, discovering hiking trails and horseback riding, all surrounded by a unique landscape and panoramic views of all kinds of multicolored rock formations. It can be reached from the city in 1 hour by car.