This massif, the highest one in Western Europe after the Alps, mainly runs through the province of Granada and takes up part of Almería. Its top peak is Mulhacén, the highest one in the entire Iberian Peninsula. It features one of the most important ski slopes in the country.

The scene in which ‘Lawrence of Arabia‘ and what is left from the Arab army cross some snow-covered mountains was shot in Sierra Nevada.

In ‘Doctor Zhivago‘, some of the scenes were shot in Los Llanos de La Calahorra (Granada), with Sierra Nevada working as a background, concretely, the scenes where Yuri Zhivago’s mother appeared, when he was a child. Views of snowy Sierra Nevada were also shot to represent the Urals Mountains when Yuri, his wife and his child leave Moscow to their farm, running away from the Civil War.

In ‘Isabel’, the unique Sierra Nevada landscape is the set for the burial of Muley Hacén, as it is said that he asked to be buried “as close as possible to heaven and as far as possible from mankind”; this why the Peninsula’s highest peak has taken on his name.