Everyone, it seems, who’s ever been to Granada falls in love with the Albayzin. (HostelBloggers certainly did – utterly head over heels!) And it’s hardly surprising: a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it’s one of the most beautiful old quarters of any city in Europe. But just as surprising is how few travelers fall under the spell of – or indeed even really notice – the Realejo.

Over to the west of the city center, the Realejo is Granada’s ‘other’ historical quarter. And if it doesn’t (quite) have the outrageous charm of the Albayzin, it’s still a winding maze of narrow streets and time-worn old houses, convents and churches that’s great for exploring.

The best place to start a walk round the Realejo is probably at the crossroads of Calle Colchas and Calle Pavaneras. Here, a bronze statue of the great Jewish translator Yehuda Ibn Tibon stands, brandishing a parchment. It’s a symbolic place to begin because, just as the Albayzin was Granada’s Moorish neighborhood, so the Realejo used to be the home of the city’s Jewish population.

The Realejo stretches away to the statue’s left. And if – as was the case when HostelBloggers were in Granada - it’s summer or autumn, it will be with some relief that you scuttle out of the withering heat and down the narrow, shady Calle San Matias.

About halfway down Calle San Matias, turn right onto Escudo del Carmen and you enter one of the oldest parts of the Realejo. Here, the houses increasingly begin to lean in on themselves, almost shutting out the sunlight from above. If you take a left onto Calle Laurel de San Matias, you pass a handful of 16th century houses (their gorgeous courtyards, unfortunately, locked away behind private doors); turn left at the end of the street, and you start to double-back upon yourself.

Wandering through this part of the barrio, you see more evidence of the area’s ethnic roots. As is the case everywhere, it’s the tiny little historical details that tell the city’s story and now make it such a bewitching place for the traveler in Granada.

As you come out onto Calle San Matias again, you’re faced with the facade of the Church of San Matias. Around the right-hand side of it is a leafy little square – the Plaza Abside de San Matias – that makes a great place to sit in the shade and catch your breath before you crash on again.

If you leave the little square at its far left-hand corner and head to the end of the street, you come to another plaza: the striking Plaza Padre Suarez. From here, it’s just a quick right turn and a short stroll down Calle Escolastica to the tiny Bar Candela (No. 9, on the corner). Yet another of the many atmospheric tapas bars in Granada, it’s a perfect spot for a drink and a moment to take stock.

As well as being an attractive old quarter, like the Albayzin, the Realejo has a real sense of community. There are plenty of the sort of noisy cafes and spit and sawdust bars in which HostelBloggers feel most at home; old ladies shuffle about with their shopping carts, or talk – for what seems like days – in the butchers; mopeds snarl their way down narrow streets; dogs sit on doorsteps eyeing you with lazy suspicion…

It’s a proper neighborhood, in other words, and it’s that more than anything else that makes it one of the most interesting parts of Granada.