7 Days in Granada: Day Trip Base

July 19, 2026

Seven days is the full version of this gateway family: the 6-day plan plus Antequera’s Neolithic dolmens and the El Torcal karst park on day 7, about an hour by car. Day 1 is Granada itself, days 2 through 6 are the Sierra Nevada, the Alpujarras, Cordoba, Guadix, and the coast, day 7 closes with prehistory. This is every genuine day trip this guide covers, run back to back.

Book these before you go

Alhambra timed Nasrid Palace ticket: book the official entry on tickets.alhambra-patronato.es
Sierra Nevada day trip with transport handled for you: browse options on GetYourGuide
A Cordoba day trip with the Mezquita included: browse options on GetYourGuide
A Nerja and Costa Tropical day trip: browse options on GetYourGuide

Day	Destination	Travel time from Granada
Day 1	Granada itself (home base)	In town
Day 2	Sierra Nevada	About 45 min by car or bus
Day 3	The Alpujarras (Pampaneira, Bubion, Capileira)	1-1.5 h by car or tour
Day 4	Cordoba (the Mezquita)	1h20-1h40 by AVE/Avant train
Day 5	Guadix	About 1 h by train or bus
Day 6	Nerja and the Costa Tropical	1-1.5 h by bus
Day 7	Antequera	About 1 h by car via the A-92

Day 1: Granada Itself, Your Home Base

Check into a hotel near Plaza Nueva or up in the Albaicin, both keep you within walking range of the bus and train stations you will need over the next six days
Lock in the Alhambra’s timed Nasrid Palaces slot, the general ticket runs roughly EUR 21-22 and the 30-minute window printed on your ticket is not flexible, arrive late and you forfeit the entry
Spend the afternoon in the Albaicin’s whitewashed lanes, then catch the Mirador San Nicolas at dusk, the floodlit Alhambra against the Sierra Nevada is the view every day trip in this guide gets measured against
Run a free-tapa round on Calle Elvira or Calle Navas before bed, order a drink for roughly EUR 2.50-3.50 and the bar picks your tapa, no separate order needed

Do you need to see the Alhambra before day-tripping out of Granada? Not strictly, but almost everyone builds a Granada trip around it anyway. Book the Nasrid Palaces slot the moment your travel dates are fixed, then schedule the day trips for whichever days that ticket does not land on, not the other way round.

Day 2: Sierra Nevada, 45 Minutes Up

Catch an ALSA bus or drive the roughly 45 minutes from Granada’s bus station up to the Pradollano resort area
Ski or snowboard if the season allows it, the 2025/26 season opens mid-December and runs into April, day pass roughly EUR 47 at its cheapest climbing toward EUR 66 around Christmas, buy online ahead of the date rather than at the resort
Outside ski season, swap the lift pass for a hike toward Mulhacen, mainland Spain’s highest peak
Back in Granada by evening, check current conditions on Sierra Nevada’s own site before you commit to the day

Can you get to Sierra Nevada from Granada without a car? Yes. An ALSA bus runs directly from Granada’s bus station to the resort in about 45 minutes, and a guided day trip handles the transport and any lift-ticket logistics if you would rather not deal with either.

Day 3: The Alpujarras, White Villages on the Mountain’s Other Side

Head out 1 to 1.5 hours to Pampaneira, Bubion, and Capileira, white villages with Berber-influenced flat roofs stacked on the Sierra Nevada’s southern slopes
Public ALSA buses reach these villages but run thin, a rental car or a booked small-group tour is the realistic way to see all three in one day without getting stuck on a bad return connection
Order the plato alpujarreno for lunch, a fried plate of ham, chorizo, black pudding, egg, and potatoes that shows up on every menu in the region
Browse the local jamon and weavings in Pampaneira before heading back to Granada for the evening

Do you need a rental car for the Alpujarras? Not required, but strongly recommended. Public buses run only a few times a day, so a self-guided public-transport day risks stranding you in one village without a timely way back. A car or a booked tour is what actually lets you see Pampaneira, Bubion, and Capileira all in one trip.

Day 4: Cordoba and the Mezquita

Take an early AVE or Avant train, roughly 1h20 to 1h40 each way with close to nine departures a day, book ahead on Renfe for the better fares
Walk straight to the Mezquita, a working Renaissance cathedral built directly inside a forest of horseshoe-arch columns from the old Great Mosque, adult ticket roughly EUR 13, or catch the free entry window Monday to Saturday roughly 8:30-9:30am if the schedule allows, though that window skips the cathedral nave and choir
Wander the old Jewish Quarter and one of Spain’s few surviving synagogues before lunch, then browse the rest of the historic center with Turismo de Cordoba’s own listings
Catch an afternoon train back to Granada, or extend the day if your ticket allows a later return

Day 5: Guadix, Cave Houses People Actually Live In

Take the roughly hour-long train or bus out to Guadix, one of the cheapest trips in this entire family at around EUR 6 each way
Walk the Barrio de las Cuevas, where families still live in whitewashed cave houses carved into the soft rock, not a museum reconstruction, some open as small guesthouses or cave-house museums for a few euros
This is a genuinely different cave tradition from Sacromonte’s flamenco caves back in the city, worth doing precisely because it is not a repeat
Back in Granada by mid-afternoon, an easy half-day that leaves room for one more Albaicin wander before dinner

Day 6: Nerja and the Costa Tropical

Ride an ALSA coach roughly 1 to 1.5 hours out toward the coast, Nerja itself sits in Malaga province, not Granada’s own coastline, so decide first whether the caves or the coast is the actual draw
If caves are the point, the Nerja Caves run roughly EUR 16 for a large show-cave system, one of the biggest single sights on this whole itinerary
If a beach is the point, Granada’s own Costa Tropical (Almunecar, Salobrena, Motril) is closer and lower-key, with dark volcanic-sand beaches and Salobrena’s whitewashed village under a Moorish castle as the standout stop
Check current Andalucia tourism board listings for both towns before you pick a direction for the day

Day 7: Antequera, Dolmens Older Than the Pyramids

Drive or join a tour about an hour out via the A-92, direct public buses run only 2-3 times a day, genuinely awkward without a car or a booked tour
Walk the Menga, Viera, and El Romeral dolmens, UNESCO-listed Neolithic burial monuments, the Menga dolmen dates to roughly 3750-3650 BC, older than Egypt’s pyramids and free to enter
Spend the afternoon in the El Torcal karst park, a landscape of wind-carved limestone formations a short drive from the dolmen site
Head back to Granada in the evening, or treat this as your last full day before departure

Antequera closes the week on the oldest thing you will see on this entire itinerary, a genuinely different register from the Moorish-era sights that fill every other day.

Seven days is every real day trip this gateway family has to offer, run in the order they make the most logistical sense. For the city itself in more depth rather than leaving town every day, our Granada city guide and its own 7-day Granada itinerary go all in on the Alhambra, the Albaicin, and Sacromonte instead.