The “Darro” river's banks were inhabited since the fourth century. In the seventh century an important Visigoth colony settled along the “Sabika” hills, where we can find nowadays the “ Alhambra ”. The opposite bank of the river welcomed an incipient Jewish colony.Granada was known in those times as “Garnata Al-Yahud”, meaning the Granada of the Jewish.The “Darro” river banks started their splendour in the eleventh century, the symbols of which are the “Bañuelo”, arab public baths, known in those times as “Hamman”, the “Puente de los Tableros”, or “Bab-Al-Difaf” in the arab language of the time, which has nowadays reduced its magnificent arch.Near the river from the then so-called “Puente de los Leñadores” or Lumberjack bridge, (Qantarat al-Harratin in arab), and actual “Paseo del Padre Manjón”, there were three clearly differentiated districts: “Ajsares” over “Cuesta del Chapiz” and toward the “Albaycín” and “Sacromonte” districts; “Aitunhar-Arrohán” from there to “Casa de Castril” and the surrounding of “San Pedro”; and the “Qauryya” or “Cauracha” over the river avenue from the “Puente de los Tableros” to the nearby actual “Plaza Nueva”.

The area known as “Cauracha” where the Hotel “Zaguán del Darro” is located, consisted of a series of small properties with its houses and orchards inside a walled structure which, starting in the actual “Calle San Juan de los Reyes”, led down to the banks of the river. The surroundings of the river Darro changed gradually after the “toma de Granada ”, or taking of the city by the Catholic Monarchs from the Moors, on the second of January 1492. With the arrival of the powerful emperor Charles I, the area developed to noble houses, some of them still conserving their original entrances. Don Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, the “Gran Capitán” and the powerful secretary of the Catholic Monarchs, Don Hernando de Zafra, had many properties in the zone. The names of some streets of the district and the “Casa de Castril”, nowadays Archaeological Museum of the city, still remain.

The Hotel Zaguán is a rehabilitated house of the nobility from the sixteenth century. An important man of the Royal Court lived there around 1563, giving it as a gift afterwards to a religious community at the end of the century, being as a consequence rehabilitated for that purpose. The shields in carved stone, the courtyard with Macael and Sierra Elvira marble columns and the wooden structure are exceptionally preserved. All these elements, including a renaissance fountain, are still maintained in spite of fires, earthquakes and the explosion of a powder keg which forced to change the whole “Carrera del Darro” from the second half of the sixteenth century on.

Many travellers in search of legends and romantic landscapes were attracted to Granada during the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century. This was documented in publications, lithographs and engravings, and the “Carrera del Darro” acquired a layer of history, charm and legend which is nowadays loaded with magic. The “Carrera del Darro”, at the foot of the “Alhambra” and powerful “Alcazaba”, could well be named “the most beautiful street in Europe” and is probably one of the most filled with history from other times; full moons, romances, music and poetry which flowed under its striking windows.

The “Hotel Zaguán del Darro” awaits your visit to enjoy this special surrounding.