In the darkened sitting room, Paola Moreno Borrajo and her mother bring out plates of ham and spicy chorizo sausage. The old lady pours glasses of chilled Fino, while her daughter stokes the fire.
"The house was going to ruin," says Paola. "There was a man who moved in with his eight children and refused to leave. They slept on the floor and kept pigs in here."
The Cortijo El Encinar de Bizcandia - a suitably grand name for the rangy farmhouse - and the surrounding land have been in the Moreno family for generations. When Paola was growing up, she and her brothers played in the chapel and drawing room, before her father rebuilt and modernised the house, emblazoning the family monogram everywhere, including the floor of the swimming pool (which gives the odd impression of a submerged masonic symbol).
But squatters and thieves reduced the farmhouse to a shell. "After my father died, we realised that if we didn't restore it, we would lose it," Paola says. Five years later, the walls are gleaming white, the floors tiled in polished terracotta. The many rooms are small and monastic, with wooden beds and colourful, striped curtains in rough cloth; all of them have a stunning view of the Los Alayos mountains.
The house stands at the top of a rough mud track. After all their trouble with thieves, you'd think the family would keep a ferocious guard dog, but the boxer who pounds up the garden path licks my hand through the bars.
We take a stroll across country, with the scent of rosemary and thyme rising up to meet us as we tramp along, watching the afternoon sun turn the far side of the valley a deep, soft red.
The only people in sight are an old man grazing his mule and goat, and two young men with shotguns and small birds hanging from their gunbelts. There is no sound but the wind. At the weekend, the valley resounds with shotgun blasts, as hunters fire at anything that moves. The country surrounding the house is part of a hunting reservation, and a beauty spot for locals, who come up with their picnics and guns.
There are long walks straight from the house, but if you want to explore the Los Alayos foothills, you can cover a lot more ground on horseback.
Just 15 minutes' drive from the house is a riding stable run by two French cousins, Stephanie and Sandra Arderius. We were rather startled to be handed brushes and told, "You must clean your horses" - needless to say, one of the horses was white and caked from ears to tail in mud.
The cousins are used to instructing local children, so we jogged a couple of rounds with the school while Stephanie barked us into shape before setting off. In the late afternoon, we stepped out of the stable yard straight into open country, following paths through the fields and olive groves. Reaching the top of a small rise, we came in full view of the snow-capped sweep of the Sierra Nevada, which stayed in our sights as we wound our way towards the hills.
There was no one in sight, nothing but horses' hooves and goat bells in earshot across the gently rolling country. The afternoon sun sent long, sharp shadows out from the base of every olive tree.
The excitable little horses were determined to race each other, bouncing along the familiar paths, but there's no danger as the tracks wind uphill forever.
The stable takes day-long treks into the mountains, with a picnic and swimming stop beside one of the mountain lakes at midday (although you have to book well in advance).
If you want to get even closer to the snowline, there is the Sierra Nevada ski resort.
There is plenty of activity to be had in the mountainous country, but the cortijo's garden offers splendid views and probably the most panoramic swimming pool you are ever likely to find. In summer, the flagstone terrace outside would be an ideal spot for cooking and eating.
The house itself has been designed more as a hotel or guest house than as a place you might treat like home, with a small bar and a couple of imitation leather sofas. But a large group of people, or two or three families with children, could share the large, well appointed kitchen and dining room without getting overcrowded.
The local village of Dilar is quiet and unspoilt, with mules and other livestock strolling along the streets. Paola saved us the trouble of trying out the many local country restaurants: "They are terrible. If you close your eyes, you can't tell what you are eating. Bleagh!"
Luckily, Granada, and some excellent restaurants, is a 20-minute drive away. There is an indoor market selling fish, local cheeses and every cut of pig you can imagine, as well as many you would rather not. The town is pretty, but if you wander over to the Albaycin - the old Arab quarter of narrow, cobbled streets and whitewashed houses - you get your first glimpse of the city's great treasure: the red, square towers of the Alhambra, an Arab 15th-century castle, which dominates the old town from a hilltop.
The Alhambra's walls offer sweeping views of Granada and the surrounding mountains. Its palaces are resonant with intrigue: each courtyard and archway, decorated with beautiful carvings, contains secret corners where meetings were held, plots and love affairs were hatched. Inner courtyards, with delicate columns and intricate, geometric carving, are mirrored in still pools. In one blue-tiled, mirrored hall, an Arab king, about to marry for the second time, is said to have murdered the children of his first marriage. The exquisite decoration makes this act seem all the more mysterious.
In the gardens, each pool and shrub is chiselled with the same restful symmetry. Above the Alhambra are the Generalife gardens, courtyards with sculpted trees and brick paths winding between whitewashed walls. Each courtyard centres on a pool with threads of water playing across the surface.
It is good to know that after feasting your senses, you can get back to your rural retreat and gaze at the mountains in the silence of the evening.