Lanjarón

The queue starts at 07:30. Pensioners in housecoats, cyclists with empty bidons and German camper-van owners line up beside a stone fountain on Calle Real, each waiting to fill jerry-cans with Lanjarón’s famous mineral water. It’s free, tastes faintly of iron, and flows 24 hours a day straight from the Sierra Nevada snowmelt. Welcome to the Alpujarras’ original spa town—less glossy than you pictured, but impossible to leave thirsty.

A town that runs on gravity

Lanjarón tumbles 659 metres down a south-facing ridge, so every walk is either uphill or worse. The main street, Avenida de la Constitución, drops so sharply that shopkeepers have built wooden ramps behind their counters to stop crates sliding away. White houses roofed with flat terracina clay jostle for space; balconies overflow with geraniums fed by the irrigation channels that gurgle beneath the streets. These acequias—dug by the Moors a millennium ago—still divide water by the hour, a legal system recognised in the town hall’s ledgers. Look for the brass plaques beside certain doorways: “12:00–14:00, Martes y Viernes” warns visitors not to dip a bucket at the wrong moment.

The altitude means evenings stay cool even in July, when Granada city 45 minutes away swelters at 38 °C. Day-trippers from the Costa Tropical (35 minutes south) arrive clutching cardigans they didn’t need on the beach, surprised to see snow still streaking the western flank of Veleta above the town.

Water, ham and a castle that isn’t there

Start early at the Balneario, the wedding-cake spa hotel that opened in 1840. García Lorca came for his nerves; today the clientele is mostly Spanish retirees on NHS-equivalent health breaks. A basic circuit of thermal pools costs €22 if booked online, but the building itself is the real spectacle: marble corridors, brass taps the size of cannon barrels and doctors in white coats prescribing 12-minute gulps of magnesium-rich “Agua #3”. Walk out through the gardens and you’ll find the lesser-known Fuente de los 50 Caños, a grotto where visitors dart between icy jets like children at a splash park—except the average age is seventy-five.

Fifteen minutes uphill, the ruins of Lanjarón’s 13th-century Arab castle are exactly that: two walls and a cluster of agaves. Come for the platform view instead—clear across the Poqueira gorge to the almond terraces of Órgiva, with the Mediterranean a silver blade on the horizon at dusk. Sunset crowds rarely top a dozen; bring your own beer, there’s no kiosk.

Back in the centre, the 16th-century Iglesia de la Encarnación squats over its own shadow. Inside, a cedar altarpiece carved in 1556 shows the Virgin missing a hand—lost, locals insist, when a British cannonball grazed her during the Peninsular War. Whether true or not, the church clock still strikes the hour twice, once for the living and once for the dead.

Trails that start outside the front door

The GR-7 long-distance footpath begins beside the post office, marked by a concrete post painted red-and-white. A gentle 90-minute loop follows irrigation channels to the hamlet of La Venta, where Bar El Puntal serves coffee so strong it stains the cup. Serious walkers can keep climbing east on the old mule track to Tíjár, gaining 800 metres in 8 km—temperature drops roughly one degree every 150 metres, so that April morning that began at 18 °C can finish in sleet. Carry layers; the taxi back costs €25 if you phone in advance.

Mountain-bikers use Lanjarón as an access ramp to the GR-142 coast-to-sierra route. Expect gravel switchbacks, loose dogs and views that make you stop mid-climb. Bike hire is available from the garage opposite the Día supermarket—€20 a day, helmet extra, no insurance paperwork beyond a passport photocopy.

Food that arrives with the drink

Evening starts late. At 20:30 the bars on Calle Real still hose down the pavement; by 21:00 every table is taken. Order a €1.90 caña of Alhambra beer and it appears with a plate of jamón serrano from Trevélez—no choice, no surcharge. Accept the system: second round brings migas (fried breadcrumbs laced with garlic and chorizo), third delivers fresh goat’s-cheese drizzled with local honey. A full tapas crawl for two rarely tops €30, though pace is everything—kitchens close abruptly at 23:30 when staff sit down to their own dinner.

Sunday lunch is the main event. Restaurante Las Alpujarras roasts a whole Segureño lamb overnight; the €18 menú del día includes a quarter-kilo portion, plus wine and pudding. Vegetarians survive on berenjenas con miel (aubergine chips with molasses) and the town’s ubiquitous habas con jamón—broad beans so tender they taste like garden peas that have been to finishing school.

When the water fights back

Lanjarón’s fiestas are not spectator sports. On 23 June the Water & Ham Festival turns the centre into a nocturnal water battle—backpacks sprayed with hoses, pensioners wielding pressure guns, the mayor driving a fire engine. By 02:00 the streets run pink with diluted sangria; by 04:00 only the ham remains dry. Book accommodation early, or stay away—there is no middle ground.

Winter brings the opposite problem. January highs hover at 12 °C, but night frost is common and rental houses rarely have central heating. Most locals heat one room with a pellet burner and wear coats indoors. Snow itself is rare in town, yet the mountain road to Trevélez can close after heavy falls—carry chains if you’re staying beyond March.

Getting here, getting out

Granada airport is 50 minutes north-east on the A-44; Málaga is 75 minutes south-west. Car hire desks at both close at 23:00, so delayed flights mean a night in the city. ALSA buses reach Lanjarón four times daily from Granada (€4.25, one hour), but the stop is a 10-minute hike above the centre with no taxi rank—pack light.

If you base yourself here, allow day trips to the coast (Salobreña’s beaches, 35 minutes) and to Granada’s Alhambra (pre-book tickets), but don’t treat Lanjarón as a dormitory. The place works best when you give in to its rhythm: early bed, early rise, queue for water, walk until your legs object, then sit in a plaza while the church clock strikes twice and the snowline creeps slowly up the ridge.