Dog Walkers in Granada, Spain

Granada sits at nearly seven hundred metres with a three-thousand-metre range behind it, and that combination produces a climate unlike the rest of Andalusia. The daily swing is enormous: in spring and autumn there can be fifteen degrees between dawn and mid-afternoon, so the same route at eight in the morning and at six in the evening amounts to two different walks. In winter it freezes; in summer the figures match the Guadalquivir valley.

The topography splits the city into two logics. The upper town — Albaicín, Sacromonte, Realejo — is a maze of cobbled slopes, alleys and stairways, beautiful but demanding: excellent training for a young dog, a real problem for an old one. The flat town — Zaidín, La Chana, the area around Camino de Ronda — is entirely different, with wide streets and a modern grid where walking is comfortable and predictable.

Above the Alhambra lies the great local secret: the Llano de la Perdiz. It is an extensive pine wood on the high ground of the hill, with broad earth tracks, shade and fresh air even in August, and it is where people go when their dog needs to genuinely run. You climb from the Realejo or the Sacromonte, and in twenty minutes the whole atmosphere has changed.

And then there is the sierra. Sierra Nevada is a long half hour away by car, which permits something unheard of: in the middle of July you can climb to eighteen hundred metres, walk a two-hour route at fifteen degrees and come back down to the city for dinner. No other Spanish capital offers that thermal escape so close.