Hotel La Pérgola

Where Granada's Old Town Slows Down to a Courtyard

Granada is a loud, beautiful, coloured city, and the trick to enjoying it is knowing where to turn the volume down. Calle el Caimito runs one block off La Calzada, the pedestrian street where the city eats and drinks, and behind a plain colonial door the noise simply stops. La Pergola is a nineteenth-century house, restored rather than rebuilt, with its rooms arranged around a planted courtyard and a terrace on the upper floor. From up there the cathedral towers sit in the foreground and the Mombacho volcano closes the view. It is a small hotel that behaves like a private house.

Why It Works

We kept this one for three reasons. It is a genuine colonial house rather than a modern build with a colonial facade: the proportions, the tiled floors and the interior garden are the ones Granada's merchant families lived with. It is one block from La Calzada, which means the restaurants are thirty seconds away and the sound of them is not. And it has the terrace, an ordinary-sounding amenity that turns out to be what guests remember, because it frames the cathedral and the volcano in a single view. Service is personal, from a team that knows the city.

Why This Location

Calle el Caimito sits three blocks from Parque Central and four from the shore of Lake Nicaragua, which is as central as Granada gets without sleeping on the main square. La Calzada, one block away, is the strip of restaurants and bars that runs from the cathedral down toward the water. Everything a first-time visitor wants is walkable: the yellow cathedral, the Convento San Francisco, the municipal market, the boats out to Las Isletas. Mombacho and its cloud forest are a short drive south, and the road to Managua's airport takes about forty-five minutes.

Fast Facts

• Price: $$, mid-range colonial

• Vibe: Quiet, tiled, green, unhurried

• Rooms: Twenty-six, arranged around a tropical colonial garden, family rooms included

• Best For: Couples, first-time visitors to Granada, slow travellers

• Our Favorite Thing About the Hotel: The rooftop pergola, with the cathedral towers in front and Mombacho behind

• Dining: Breakfast served on the terrace; the restaurants of La Calzada one block away

• Amenities: Interior garden courtyard, rooftop terrace with cathedral and volcano views, family rooms

• Attractions: La Calzada one block; Parque Central and the cathedral three blocks; the lakeshore four blocks; Convento San Francisco a short walk; Mombacho volcano and Las Isletas a short drive

Rooms Around the Garden

The rooms open onto the planted courtyard or the corridors that ring it, which is the classic arrangement of a Granada merchant house: rooms deep rather than wide, high ceilings, shuttered doors onto the garden. The restoration kept the shell and the floor tiles and added what a traveller now expects, without turning the place into a design statement. Family rooms are available, which is less common in the old town's smaller hotels. Ask for a room away from the street side if you want the courtyard quiet, and one near the stairs if you intend to use the terrace often.

The Pergola: Breakfast Under the Cathedral Towers

The terrace is the hotel's name and its argument. It runs along the top floor, open to the breeze that comes off the lake in the late afternoon, and it looks over the tile roofs to the cathedral towers with Mombacho behind them. Breakfast is served up there in the morning, which is the best hour for the light and the coolest for sitting. In the evening it is where guests come back to after dinner on La Calzada, the city still audible but a floor below.

Getting Around Granada from Calle el Caimito

Granada is a walking city and this address makes that easy, but a few things are worth planning. Boat trips to Las Isletas leave from the lakeshore, four blocks down. The Mombacho cloud forest reserve needs a half day and a vehicle. Transfers from Managua's international airport take roughly forty-five minutes and are best arranged in advance. And the old town is best walked early or late; the middle of the day belongs to the courtyard.