Our guide Angel Lucena Garcia (00 34 635 86 42 11; angellucena5@gmail.com) explained that points are given for architectural elements including arches, columns, stairs and fountains as well as plants. It is a matriarch tradition with only two men among the more than 60 patio owners. What’s striking is that the tradition of maintaining the patios is transferred from generation to generation, and is an idiosyncratic way of preserving individual family histories. 

Several of my favourite patios in the San Basilio area (Isabel’s patio at Duartas 2, for example) are full of culinary antiques, vintage rocking chairs and other domestic treasures. There’s plenty of inspiration for vertical gardening on a dizzyingly abundant scale even in very small spaces, too. 

Endearingly, it is a ritual enjoyed among locals – including families with young children – as well as tourists, and there can be queues of more than an hour to visit the most popular patios. Purchasing an online pass (€5/£4) is recommended, especially at weekends. During the Christmas competition, entry is free, otherwise many patios are open all year, albeit at specific hours allowing for sprucing up the patios and a long afternoon siesta. There’s also Viana Palace, a 14th-century building known as the Patio Museum with 12 patios of its own, while peeping through the grilles of courtyards, not officially open, is perfectly acceptable. 

Over the Christmas period, most courtyards will be decorated predominantly with cyclamen, azalea, kalanchoe, geraniums, chillies, herbs and most of all poinsettia, indigenous to Mexico and Central America. There’s been a long history of plant dispersal as well as ingredients between the New World and the old.