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If you're spending just a couple of days in Granada it's hard to resist spending both of them in the Alhambra. There are, however, a handful of minor Moorish sites and, climbing up from the Darro, the run-down medieval streets of the Albaicin , the largest and most characteristic Moorish quarter that survives in Spain. In addition, it's worth the distinct readjustment and effort of will to appreciate the city's later Christian monuments. The Albaicin stretches across a fist-shaped area bordered by the river, the Sacromonte hill, the old town walls and the winding Calle de Elvira (parallel to the Gran Via de Colon, the main avenue which bisects central Granada). The best approach is along the Carrera del Darro, beside the river. At no. 31 on this street are the remains of the Banos Arabes (Tues-Sat 10am-2pm; free), marvellous and very little-visited Moorish public baths. At no. 43 is the Casa de Castril (Tues 3-8pm, Wed-Sat 9am-8pm, Sun 9am-2.30pm; ?1.50, free to EU citizens), a Renaissance mansion which houses the town's Archeological Museum . Of particular note here are some remarkable finds from the Neolithic Cueva de los Murcielagos (Cave of the Bats) in the Alpujarras; there are also exhibits from Granada's Phoenician, Roman, Visigothic and Moorish periods. Beside the museum a road ascends to the church of San Juan (with an intact thirteenth-century minaret) and to San Nicolas , whose square offers a view of the Alhambra considered to be the best in town. Outside the Albaicin are two of the most interesting Moorish mansions: the Corral del Carbon , a fourteenth-century caravanserai (an inn where merchants would lodge and, on the upper floors, store their goods), now home of the turismo; and the nearby Casa de los Tiros , actually built just after the Reconquest, which has a curious facade adorned with Greek deities and a number of stone muskets projecting from the upper windows. Perhaps the most interesting Moorish building in the lower town, though, and oddly one of the least well known, is the so-called Palacio Madraza (Mon-Fri 8am-10pm; closed Aug; free), a strangely painted building opposite the Capilla Real. Built in the early fourteenth century, this is a former Islamic college ( medressa in Arabic) and retains part of its old prayer hall, including a magnificently decorated mihrab . Just to the east of Plaza Nueva behind the church of Santa Ana, the Banos Arabes Al Andalus, c/Santa Ana 16 (reservation required on 958 229 978; bath ?10.50) gives you some idea of what a Moorish bathhouse would have been like when functioning. Here you can wallow in the graded temperatures of the re-created traditional baths - decorated with mosaics and plaster arabesques - or take tea in the peaceful teteria (tea room) upstairs.
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