The easy way to see Andalusia's beautiful, history-packed villages

Times

a day ago

On my first evening in the Alpujarran village of Mairena (population 150), I met the mayor. Rafael Marzon was herding 80 sheep down the lane and stopped to chuckle with the owner of the guesthouse where I was staying about how he had originally bought eight to 'keep his hand in' as a shepherd.
He wasn't the only mayor I met on my Inntravel walking holiday, roaming between the whitewashed villages of the serrated Sierra Nevada, southeast of Granada. A phone call to request access to a little museum dedicated to the British author Gerald Brenan in the village of Yegen (population 300) resulted in Mayor José Antonio Gómez turning up to personally greet me and unlock the door.
That's the way things are done in the Alpujarra, a historical region that unfurls across the famous mountain range in Andalusia, a place where a vanishing way of life still clings to the precipitous slopes. Here, close-knit communities eke out a living below the snowline, valleys are scented with wild thyme and rosemary, and until recently mules were still a preferred mode of transport.
In fact these villages have long shaped our idea of romantic rural Spain, largely thanks to the generations of writers who fell in love with them. In the 1920s, recently released from the British Army after the First World War, Brenan hiked to Yegen, rented a house and lived there on and off between 1920 and 1934. He promptly invited his friends in the Bloomsbury Group to visit — Lytton Strachey wasn't such a fan but Virginia Woolf thoroughly enjoyed her stay — and eventually wrote South from Granada about village life.
In the 1990s the former Genesis drummer Chris Stewart's book Driving over Lemons convinced us all that, with a little tenacity, maybe we too could buy a remote farm and a flock of sheep, and set about living a self-sufficient life.
I read both books many years ago and loved the idea of ranging across the Sierra Nevada, exploring isolated villages built in the Berber style with sugar cube houses tumbling down hillsides. The Moors retreated here after the fall of Spain's last Muslim kingdom in Granada in 1492 and their influence can still be felt everywhere. Their terraced farms and acequia irrigation channels, funnelling the snow melt from higher altitudes, remain. Their crops — almonds, figs and olives — are still mainstays, as are the saffron and cumin used to flavour dishes. So blended are the layers of culture and jumbled traditions that the Spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca called the Alpujarra 'the land of nowhere'.
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Inspired by Brenan but looking for rather less adventure than his days-long hikes up and down Andalusia's mountains, my boyfriend and I opted for a more sedate walking holiday. One where we would have a village base and could simply head out to follow different routes each day, ranging from morning strolls of a couple of miles to longer, full-day hikes, always with a brief stop for a tapas lunch.
The walking holiday expert Inntravel found the perfect hosts to run Sierra Nevada: An Alpujarran Village Experience in the British couple David and Emma Illsley. For more than 20 years the Illsleys have lived in the village of Mairena, running Casa Las Chimeneas, which incorporates a guesthouse, a separate restaurant and even a yoga pavilion with the most meditative of valley views. They raised their sons here and fell in love with the way of life. You can feel it as soon as you check in: Casa Las Chimeneas is the kind of place that immediately folds you into Alpujarran living.
Soon we were nodding buenos dias to the locals as we crossed the square for breakfast in the restaurant. As the sun set and the restaurant's log fire chased away the chill of an early spring evening, we joined fellow guests to exchange stories of favourite walks over dinner.
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And what dinners they were. Local produce whipped into hearty three-course meals by the villagers Conchi and Fernanda: broad beans with aged serrano ham, fried aubergine with molasses, stuffed mushrooms and red peppers. All was washed down with Alpujarran wine and followed with desserts of chocolate-dipped figs and oranges with mint and dates. So popular is the food that it has become the subject of another book eulogising the Alpujarran experience, Las Chimeneas: Recipes and Stories from an Alpujarran Village, written by the Illsleys.
We had opted for a rental car through Inntravel so had the freedom to explore further afield but there was no need. A web of walking trails fans out from Mairena, following old mule tracks and linking together neighbouring villages. And Casa Las Chimeneas can always organise a taxi for adventures. Inntravel's detailed walking guide, sent before our trip, gives history lessons, tips on where to eat and detailed route information so you never get lost.
Each morning we would pore over our guide, choosing our route for the day. David and Emma would chime in with their recommendations and were quick to organise additional activities, whether it was helping us to pick up the key to the Brenan museum or the chance to learn more about traditional silk weaving from Lola, a neighbour in Valor, the next village over.
Late one afternoon we strolled with David to their smallholding, tasting wild asparagus, fennel and fresh oranges as we explored. Another time, we walked a mile up the road to the next village along from Mairena, Jubar, where just 14 people live full-time.
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Here, the church, set on a precipice overlooking the valley, is a remnant of the many cultural layers that blanket these mountains. It follows the design of a mosque and is topped with a Star of David and a cross. Inside, 16th-century frescoes have been uncovered, combining images of Catholic saints and what is believed to be a local curandera (healer), standing at the right hand of Jesus.
On the way back to Mairena we popped in on neighbour Isabel, a local beekeeper who delivered a litre of pure Alpujarran honey to David for the princely sum of £7.
Wherever we went, a quick phone call from David and Emma opened doors to the communities we visited. At the Brenan museum in Yegen, Mayor Gomez showed us black-and-white photos taken by Vagn Hansen, a Danish photographer affectionately called Juan el Dinamarca (Juan the Denmark) by locals as he returned over the decades to capture their way of life.
Just down the hill, Isabel Muñoz and her daughter Carmen welcomed us to Casa Muñoz, their third-generation family business curing serrano ham for sale across Spain and Europe. About 20,000 jamones pass through their bodega each year; it's quite an eerie experience wandering among hundreds of silently hanging legs. After a tasting, we picked up some pre-sliced jamon and chorizo for the road and made like Brenan would have done in the 1920s, following his favourite post-prandial walk alongside the springs that feed the village.
On another day, we followed a mule track down to the buzzing market town of Ugijar. The seven-mile round trip from Mairena took us via a rippling stream and past badlands landscapes of rust-red soil, all the while glimpsing views of the ever-present snow cap the Sierra Nevada wears.
A rolled ankle prevented a final day of walking. The accident was the result not of a strenuous hike — I was distracted by watching the lavender sunset roll across the valley and misstepped on my way to dinner. So instead, we opted for a half-hour drive along serpentine roads to Laujar de Andarax, just across into Almeria but still part of the historic Alpujarra. It's a handsome little town where the last sultan of Granada, Boabdil, retreated after losing his kingdom.
We visited the remnants of his alcazar (fortress), the 17th-century Cathedral of the Alpujarra, and joined locals enjoying a sunny spring Sunday with coffee and churros in the main square. The surrounding countryside is stitched together with vines, and when we realised that the wine we'd been enjoying at Casa Las Chimeneas came from the vineyard Bodega Fuente Victoria nearby, we popped in unannounced.
The Suárez family, who own the winery, are recuperating once-lost vines here and while we only showed up to the shop to buy a bottle (from £6), they gave us an impromptu tour of their wine cellar. Just another example of that oh-so-welcoming way of life in the mountains.
I had settled into the Alpujarran way of life but Inntravel offers an add-on two-night city break. After following the Moors across the Sierra Nevada, it felt apt to explore the grandeur of their final kingdom in Granada. Our destination was the Casa Morisca hotel in the city's oldest neighbourhood, the Albaicin, which was the Moorish quarter. It sits on San Cristobal Hill looking across to the Alhambra, which in spring glows pink against the last winter snow of the Sierra Nevada.
To discover the opulence of the Alhambra's Nasrid Palaces, from where Boabdil reigned, you need to book tickets well in advance (from £16, tickets.alhambra-patronato.es). It's worth it to wander among the brilliant white marble courtyards and through keyhole doorways, taking in the intricate plaster work and flamboyant, colourful ceilings.
It was said that as Boabdil headed to exile in the Alpujarra, he turned to take one last look at all he'd lost and shed a tear, only to be told by his mother: 'You do well, my son, to cry like a woman for what you couldn't defend like a man.'
It's the kind of story that sums up this evocative corner of Andalusia. Where tales swirl of kingdoms won and lost, and where every corner seems to whisper stories almost lost to history. No wonder it has inspired so many generations of writers.Sarah Gordon was a guest of Inntravel, which has three nights' half-board from £470pp, including car hire, route notes, maps and some extra meals (inntravel.co.uk). A two-night add-on in Granada costs from £260pp. Fly to Granada or Malaga