Carmen de la Victoria

This guide to Carmen de la Victoria in Granada opens with a reminder that the house in front of you dates only to 1963, despite the hillside's much older story. It traces the land back to Franciscan friars who founded a convent here in 1509 and planted orchards above it, its splintering into six plots after Spain sold off church land, and a law professor's project to stitch them back into one estate before the state and university took it over. Turn toward the same view over your shoulder, toward the Alhambra, that every owner since 1509 climbed the hill to see.