If its a bit of paradise on earth youre after, look to the idealized world hidden within the walls of an Islamic garden.

Should the Arab world be outside your reach, youll find that effect fully realized in the gardens of the Alhambra, the medieval castle built by the Muslim rulers of the Nasrid dynasty, looming over the city of Granada in southern Spains Andalusia region.

Yet just down the road, away from the cacophony of tourist buses, two little-known gardens are secreted from the throngs of tourists streaming through the Alhambras corridors. One possesses a breathtaking arrangement of terraces imagined by an artist, while the others verdant landscape conveys the tranquillity of a former convent.

A tour of Granada rightly pivots upon the Alhambras wonders. The immense hilltop complexs grandeur resides in neither the surviving citadel nor the subsequent palace of Charles V, but rather in the Nasrid Palaces and exquisite gardens of the sultans retreat, the Generalife.

Nearby, the Carmen de los Mártires is a little-known gem of a garden - far less imposing but beguilingly serene. The same minibus route to the Alhambra serves the Carmen (an enclosed villa garden), but youll exit sooner at the Alhambra Palace Hotel, walking along the hilly road past the Manuel de Falla concert hall. Built to memorialize Christian martyrs, the cloistered site provided sanctuary as a Carmelite convent in the 1500s.

And while history records later owners, including Don Carlos Calderón, who constructed a villa there, the propertys fetching sense of place is credited to Huberto Meersmans, a romantic whose vision inspired a 19th century landscape of interconnected gardens influenced by English, French and Spanish styles.

Recently restored as a public park, the grounds of the Carmen are anchored by the villa building, its entry portico and rooftop balustrade facing a broad, sun-drenched promenade where peacocks strut about, welcoming visitors. Dense greenery enlivens this expanse, with a row of benches on one side for taking in the birds antics. Across the way, pencil cypresses frame far-reaching views of the Sierra Nevada.

Strolling the Carmens picturesque, terraced terrain is pleasurable. It includes orchards connected to informal woodlands crowned with soaring cypresses and paths of dappled shade giving rise to a secret grotto. A tableau of a modest lake set off by an island, tower and wooden footbridge calls you forth, and a perfectly ordered Mediterranean oasis is a refreshing spot to pause, its grove of palms encircling a splashing fountain.

Befitting the design tradition of the Carmens Andalusian Muslim heritage, the narrow confines of a walled patio garden feature a rectangular pond, mosaic pavement and richly embellished portal with multiple archways.

Retrace your steps to the Alhambra Palace Hotel esplanade to find the arcadian setting of the Rodríguez-Acosta Foundation. A tourist marker points toward the foundations inconspicuous, worn wooden doorway set within a formidable streetside wall. Sequestered here is the early-20th century home and studio of Granada-born painter José María Rodríguez-Acosta; its now a museum, cultural hub and includes the artists beautifully preserved gardens.

Theres a calculated momentum to this journey of discovery. Visitors must first follow a passageway through the foundation building, before crossing a threshold to behold Rodríguez-Acostas highly personal, modernist landscape: a multilevel configuration of individuated garden rooms presided over by classical statuary.

Borrowing features from the rarefied atmosphere of a Roman temple, the artist set the stage to stir intellectual and utopian yearnings with an architecture of clean-lined spaces defined by columned arcades and emerald green partitions - the gardens long-established clipped cypress hedges.

A tour of the garden unfolds along glistening stone terraces open to the brilliant cerulean sky, and, in stark contrast, through shady vestibules enlivened by a play of light and shadow cast by the towering columns and rounded arches.

By way of staircases linking the terraces, you proceed through a framework of hedges of varying heights, which organize the gardens soothing geometry. The outside world disappears amid these hedges, which enclose and conceal unexpected scenarios. Around each corner, a discreet scene turns your attention to a draped goddess, naked god or gathering of cherubs balanced on high pedestals - enchanting prospects complemented by auditory effects, such as splashing jets breaking the surface of a reflecting pool or a gurgling fountain.

The gardens restrained theatricality culminates at the point of a spectacular colonnade inset with ironwork balconies. Perched on high at the gardens periphery, this promontory takes full advantage of the site, not far from the Alhambra. The colonnade entices visitors to linger, looking out over evocative vistas of the countryside and rugged mountains in the distance. Looking back, the angular planes and towers of Rodríguez-Acostas villa appear, its brilliant white facade facing the idyllic landscape he created decades ago.