Pedro Martínez

The morning bus from Granada wheezes to a halt at 1,035 m above sea level and the doors open onto air that feels ten degrees cooler than the city you left an hour and a half ago. Welcome to Pedro Martínez, a place whose altitude is printed on the local letterhead and whose residents will remind you of it whenever you complain the sun feels sharper. Up here the Sierra Nevada is not a postcard but a weather vane: when the peaks vanish behind cloud, the village bar fills within minutes.

A Village that Looks Down on the Costa

White houses spill down a ridge like spilled sugar, every roof terrace angled so owners can survey their olives and, on very clear days, glimpse the distant glint of the Med. The drop-off is immediate: walk five minutes north-east and you are in holm-oak scrub at 900 m; five minutes south-west and the land pitches into the Río Guadix gorge at 700 m. That split-level geography gives Pedro Martínez two distinct seasons. May brings meadows of poppies and wild asparagus; by mid-July the same ground is bronze, the thermometer still nudging 34 °C at noon but the nights cool enough for a jumper. Winter is a different bargain: bright, often 15 °C in midday sun, yet the wind can knife through denim once the sun slips behind Mencal hill. Snow is rare in the streets but not unheard of – the 2017 dump closed the access road for 36 hours and the bakery sold out of bread by ten o’clock.

What the Old Town Actually Offers

Start at Plaza de la Constitución, a rectangle of polished stone where elderly men occupy the same benches their grandfathers used. The church clock strikes quarters whether you need them or not. From here Calle Real climbs past manor houses whose stone balconies were hauled up by mule in the 1890s; look for the green door with a brass dolphin knocker – the old olive-oil counting house, now somebody’s grandmother’s flat. One street back, the lanes shrink to shoulder width and the plaster turns the colour of wet sand. Chimneys shaped like bishops’ hats poke above the roofs; inside, residents still cook on open hearths, feeding prunings from the olive groves into the flames.

There is no ticket office, no audio guide, just the occasional hand-written card: “Ring bell if interested in oil mill.” Do so and you may get Felipe, 72, who will show the 1940s hydraulic press for the price of a cortado. He keeps a tray of last year’s oil in tiny plastic glasses that look like shot measures; sip, don’t knock it back – the peppery kick at the back of the throat is the cue it was pressed within two hours of picking.

Walking Tracks that Begin Where the Tarmac Ends

Three signed footpaths leave from the upper cemetery. The easiest, the Olivar Circular, is 5 km of gentle gradient through 800-year-old trees whose trunks resemble melted wax. Mid-way you pass a stone hut with a tin roof; someone leaves firewood stacked inside and, on Sundays, a thermos of coffee for whoever arrives first. The second track, La Campana, descends 300 m to a pair of rock pools deep enough for a swim if the winter rain has been kind. The final scramble follows a dry stream bed littered with quartz chunks; trainers suffice, but the stone can be slimy after rain and mobile reception dies halfway down.

Maps are available from the ayuntamiento, open 09:00-14:00 except Thursday afternoon, but locals still give directions the old way: “Keep the Sierra Nevada on your left until you hear water, then turn right.”

Food You Will Not Find on the Coast

Breakfast is a paper-wrapped torta de aceite the size of a side plate, aniseed scent drifting through the bag. Mid-morning calls for a caña and a plate of migas – breadcrumbs fried in olive oil with garlic and chorizo, the whole thing showered with grapes that pop against the salt. Lunch might be gachas, a thick porridge of flour and water turned sunset-orange with pimentón; order it at Bar Los Montes and they will bring a separate dish of tiny sardines to crumble on top. Vegetarians should speak up – the default garnish is diced jamón.

Evening is for rosquillas de San Blas, doughnuts sold only in February from the bakery opposite the church. They travel badly; buy two extra for tomorrow and you will find they have gone rock-hard by morning. The fix is to dunk them in the local milky coffee, a combination the British palate will recognise as remarkably similar to tea-and-biscuit logic.

How to Arrive Without Cursing the Map

From Málaga airport take the A-92 towards Granada, exit at 292 for Huétor-Tájar, then follow the A-324 via Cogollos de Guadix. The final 25 km is a single-carriagement mountain road (A-337) with 27 hairpins; count them aloud and you will understand why the village taxi is a 4×4. Petrol pumps are scarce – last reliable fill-up is at La Peza, 19 km before the climb. If you arrive after dark, note the village streetlights switch off at 01:00 to save money; bring a torch for the final metres from the car park.

There is no hotel, only three casas rurales, each with three rooms maximum. Book ahead even in low season – Granada weekenders snap up Fridays. Expect €70 a night for two, breakfast extra if you want it delivered in a wicker basket. The nearest cash machine works on alternate Mondays and feast days; Bar Los Montes will do cashback if you buy two drinks first.

When to Come and When to Stay Away

Early May gives wildflowers and daytime highs of 22 °C; the village fiesta at the end of June means free concerts in the square but also amplified music until 03:00. August is furnace-hot, yet the bars stay open because locals refuse to sleep. Mid-September brings the olive harvest: the air smells of crushed leaves and the cooperatives will let you watch the pressing if you turn up at 07:00 with your own helmet. November can be magical – crisp sun, wood-smoke, empty streets – or miserable if the levante wind drags rain across the plateau for a week.

Leave the Costa del Sol at breakfast and you can be eating migas in Pedro Martínez for lunch. The village will not change your life, but it might recalibrate your sense of altitude – and of how slowly an afternoon can pass when the only deadline is the church bell calling you to another cortado.