Alhambra

Book the right ticket, weeks ahead

The Alhambra is two booking problems disguised as one. First, buy the General ticket (about €22) — it’s the only one that includes the Nasrid Palaces, the carved-stucco and tilework rooms that are the actual reason to come. The cheaper Gardens & Generalife ticket (about €13) sounds tempting and quietly skips the palaces; people only realise at the gate. Second, book early. The palaces cap visitor numbers and admit a new group every half hour, so the popular 10:00–12:00 slots sell out weeks ahead in summer, over Easter and on Spanish public holidays. Tickets go on sale up to three months out at the official site, tickets.alhambra-patronato.es — buy as soon as your dates are firm and ignore the resellers charging a mark-up.

Your ticket prints a fixed half-hourly entry time for the Nasrid Palaces, and that time is non-negotiable: miss it and you’re turned away, no refund. Treat that slot as the fixed point of your day. The rest of the complex — the Alcazaba fortress with its views over the Albaicín, and the Generalife summer gardens across the ravine — you can see before or after, in any order.

When to go, getting up there, and is it worth it?

Pick a morning slot if you can. The site is large and largely open to the sky, and an Andalusian afternoon in July or August will flatten both you and the gardens; a 09:00–11:00 palace slot lets you finish the Generalife before the heat peaks. Allow three to four hours for the full site, and arrive 30–60 minutes before your palace time — you cross a fair bit of ground from the entrance. To get there, walk up the Cuesta de Gomérez from Plaza Nueva through the Puerta de las Granadas (15–20 minutes, but steep), or take the C30 or C32 minibus from near the Isabel la Católica statue on Gran Vía (about 10 minutes, €1.40).

This is the one sight in Andalusia worth planning a whole trip around. The Nasrid Palaces are extraordinary and genuinely better in person than in any photo. If you’ve time, come back after dark for the separate night visit to the palaces (about €13) — fewer people, dramatic lighting — and spend an evening across the valley in the Albaicín, where the terrace bars at Mirador San Nicolás look straight back at the floodlit fortress.