Costa Tropical Map

Granada’s coast is short, steep and subtropical. The Sierra Nevada rises behind it fast enough to shelter the shore from northern weather, and the result is a microclimate warm enough to grow mangoes, custard apples and avocados commercially. It is also the only Spanish coast where you can be on a beach and at a ski lift within the same two hours.

What is plotted on the Costa Tropical map

The map carries 7 places on this coast: 5 historic sites, 1 museum, 1 natural park. They span roughly 51 km in a straight line, from Alhambra in the north to Castle of San Miguel in the south.

The Costa Tropical coast, north to south

Every marker on the map, in the order you would meet it driving south. The distance is a straight line from the place above it.

Place	Type	From previous
Alhambra The Alhambra’s walls carry first-person poems where the architecture itself speaks — the largest collection of Arabic poetry inscribed on	Historic site	—
Granada Cathedral Granada Cathedral’s tower had to be built nearly 30 metres shorter than planned because its Gothic-era foundations couldn’t bear a	Historic site	1 km
Royal Chapel of Granada An ordinary silver mirror belonging to Queen Isabella was mistakenly used as a sacred monstrance for centuries at Granada’s Royal	Historic site	0 km
Huerta de San Vicente Federico García Lorca’s summer home was reconstructed from a single photographer’s 1935 visit, since his family fled Granada after his	Museum	1 km
Maro–Cerro Gordo Cliffs Natural Park Maro-Cerro Gordo’s cliffs span two provinces as one continuous protected landscape, guarding endangered orange coral in its underwater caves.	Natural park	50 km
Castillo de Salobreña Salobreña Castle was the Nasrid dynasty’s gilded prison for deposed sultans — one was held here for eleven years, and	Historic site	19 km
Castle of San Miguel Castle of San Miguel was bombarded by allied British warships, then served as Almuñécar’s cemetery for nearly 150 years —	Historic site	9 km

By what you are looking for

Historic site (5): Alhambra, Granada Cathedral, Royal Chapel of Granada, Castillo de Salobreña, Castle of San Miguel

Museum (1): Huerta de San Vicente

Natural park (1): Maro–Cerro Gordo Cliffs Natural Park

How to read the map

Each marker is coloured by place type, so a glance tells you whether a point is a beach, a town or a natural park. Clicking a marker opens its name, type and a link to the full page. The checkbox bar above the map filters by type: untick everything except beaches to see only the coastline, or leave only historic sites to plan a day inland. Markers cluster when zoomed out, so a number in a circle means several places sit close together — zoom in and the cluster splits.

For the coast written up as a single read, see the Costa Tropical guide or the region page.

How to use this map

The map is scoped to this coast: the pins are the destinations on it, not the whole of Spain. The filters above narrow it further — show only beaches, or only coves, viewpoints, castles, museums or natural parks.

Town guides on this coast

For the coast in words, see the full guide, or the region page for its destinations by area. Every Spanish coast is on the main CostaMap map.

Every place we have mapped on the Costa Tropical

22 towns, beaches, coves and landmarks, kept up to date automatically.