Casa del Chapiz

This guide to Casa del Chapiz in Granada's Albaicin starts with an odd bit of math: the house Lorenzo el Chapiz bought here in the early fifteen hundreds should be about five centuries old, but its courtyard columns, arch and roof timber look centuries older still. It follows historians' theory that these twin Morisco houses were built using recycled stone from Dar al Bayda, a vanished Nasrid palace once on the same plot, and the practical, budget-minded choices behind their mismatched design. Look for the small pond with its water lilies in the second courtyard, fed the same way it always has been.