If you like travelling, you have probably stayed in some truly original places. Hotels, apartments, caravans, bungalows, country estates… But there is one that will still surprise you: Granada’s cave houses. In the regions of Guadix, Baza and Huéscar, the geological conditions are ideal for excavating homes into the rock, something that is now offered as a quiet, safe and private accommodation option. This is what is known as troglodyte tourism. In the following lines we explain more about it, and we remind you that in our Properties section you can find a number of options available to you.
What are Granada’s cave houses
Granada’s cave houses are homes excavated into the slopes of hills and ravines. Since ancient times, people have taken advantage of the relatively soft terrain of the so-called wastelands or badlands that extend across the province: they are not suitable for agriculture, but they are easy to carve out and shape inside. This is the case with rocks such as sandstone, clay, marl or limestone.
This is what the rudimentary prehistoric man did, but also Moors and Christians in the Middle Ages during their conquests and reconquests of the territory. And after the definitive fall of the Kingdom of Granada into Catholic hands, the Morisco population developed the cave as a permanent habitat on a large scale, forming neighbourhoods such as El Pozo in Freila, Capallón in Zújar, La Morería in Castilléjar, or the most famous ones in Guadix and Baza. A use that has continued to this day, although many have been converted for tourism.
What these cave houses are like
Granada’s cave houses have everything one would expect in a home. Generally, after passing through the small entrance door, you arrive straight into the living-dining room, with a barrel-vaulted ceiling. This is the shared area of the home, where the fireplace is installed—an essential element of the structure due to its role in ventilating the interior. In addition, from the outside it gives the house a very distinctive look, as they are usually whitewashed.
And from this living-dining room, galleries are excavated that connect to the rest of the rooms, going deep into the heart of the rock. For this reason, one of the characteristics of these caves is their cool temperature in summer—an absolute luxury in this province during the hottest months. Curtains are commonly used to separate spaces, although today many have been ‘modernised’ with made-to-measure doors. Another improvement that has been available for decades is running water, replacing the washhouses and troughs of the past, which can still be seen in some cases today.
Their adaptation for tourism
Granada’s cave houses have adapted to the new demands of the tourism sector, so many are now holiday rental apartments, ideal for couples or families of different sizes. The largest operate like hotels, with room-by-room bookings. In other cases, they have been converted into restaurants or flamenco venues, as is the case, for example, in the Sacromonte neighbourhood in the provincial capital. In Guadix, you will also find a cave house museum that serves as an interpretation centre.