The Alhambra needs a ticket. Granada needs three days.
Which ticket actually opens the Nasrid Palaces. What a cave tablao in Sacromonte costs. Whether the Alpujarras beat Córdoba when you only have one day out. Reviews of every tour and ticket you can book in Granada.
A palace, a hill at dusk, a cave, and the road up the mountain.
The four bookings a first visit to Granada hangs off. What each one costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The palace morningAlhambra & Generalife Fast-Track Guided TourFast-track through the gate, then the Generalife before the terraces get hot. The version most people should book.
02The evening walkAlbaicín and Sacromonte Guided Sunset Walking TourUp through the Albaicín to San Nicolás for the last light on the Alhambra, then down into Sacromonte.
03Flamenco, close upFlamenco Show in La AlboreáA tablao room in the old town where the guitar is a metre from your knee and nothing is amplified.
04The mountain runSierra Nevada Safari Tour to 2500 m with a DrinkOut of the city and up to 2,500 metres on the Sierra Nevada road, with the Mediterranean on the horizon.
Four different visits share one gate, and only some of them open the Nasrid Palaces.
Entry is timed to the half hour, and the Nasrid Palaces are a second, separate slot printed inside your ticket. Turn up late for that one and you are looking at the rest of the hill instead. Here is what each kind of visit covers and what it costs.
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · Alhambra & Nasrid Palaces Tour with Tickets
The Nasrid PalacesCarved plaster, the Court of the Lions, and a slot you cannot move.
The GeneralifeWater stairs, cypress walks and the summer palace above the fortress.
The AlcazabaThe military end of the hill, and the whole city from the Torre de la Vela.
Entry, no guideKeep the slot, skip the commentary. The cheapest way through the gate.
All 194 Alhambra tours and tickets →
From the Nasrid gate to a cave above the Darro: what Granada books most.
Every Granada review →The tours more travellers take than anything else in the city, and what earns each one its place.
1
Alhambra & Nasrid Palaces Tour with Tickets
See Granada’s Alhambra, Nasrid Palaces, Alcazaba, and Generalife with a guide, priority entry, headsets, and three hours of focused history.
From · $64
Read our review →
2
Alhambra and Nasrid Palaces Entry Ticket
from $33
3
Alhambra & Generalife Fast-Track Guided Tour
from $88
4
Alhambra & Gardens Tour w/Nasrid Palaces Option
from $23
5
Flamenco Show in La Alboreá
from $21
6
Fast-Track Alhambra & Nasrid Palaces Guided Tour
from $56
7
Skip The Line Alhambra and Generalife Guided Tour
from $35
8
Alhambra Ticket and Guided Tour with Nasrid Palaces
from $59
Four Granada bookings that will not wait for you.
Most of this city can be arranged over breakfast. These four run on entry caps, published calendars and a mountain season, none of which care when your flight lands.
- 01Alhambra and Nasrid Palaces Entry TicketOnly a fixed number of people are let into the Nasrid Palaces each half hour. When the day sells out it sells out, and the gate does not bend.
- 02Alhambra Night Visit Entry TicketNight entry runs on selected evenings and covers only part of the complex. The calendar is published well ahead and the good months go first.
- 03Flamenco Show in La AlboreáA tablao is a room, not a theatre. Weekend seats go days out, and the ones worth having are at the front.
- 04Sierra Nevada Safari Tour to 2500 m with a DrinkThe high road is seasonal. Snow shuts the top for months and the summer runs stop the moment the weather turns.
The hill, the labyrinth below it, the caves above, and the mountains behind all three.
Granada is four places stacked on top of each other in about two square kilometres, with a ski station forty minutes further up. Six starting points, and the best day out in each.
Granada does not really start until the sun is off the Alhambra.
The viewpoints fill for the last light, the cave tablaos in Sacromonte open around nine, and every glass in this city still arrives with a plate of something on top of it. Nobody eats early here and nothing needs booking a year ahead.
Granada, sorted by what it costs to get through the door.
A cave show and a night of tapas cost less than lunch does at home. A private guide through the Nasrid Palaces does not. Every tour on the site, grouped by price.
Entry tickets, the Albaicín walks, tapas crawls and the cave tablaos.
Guided Alhambra mornings, the Sierra Nevada road and the full days out of the city.
Private guides, small-group runs to Córdoba and Seville, and the once-a-trip splurges.
Three things Granada does that the rest of Andalusia cannot.
Old towns, cathedrals and orange trees are everywhere down here. A Nasrid palace with its plasterwork intact, flamenco sung inside a hillside, and a ski lift an hour above the coast are not.
The Nasrid Palaces
Everything in these rooms is cheap material worked expensively: carved plaster, cedar, glazed tile, and water cut into channels thin enough to read as mirrors. The Court of the Lions is what the queue is for, but people stand longest under the ceiling of the Hall of the Two Sisters, thousands of little muqarnas cells hung like the inside of a wasp nest. This part of the hill is timed separately from everything else.
- 1Alhambra & Nasrid Palaces Tour with Tickets★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 19,801 reviews
- 2Alhambra and Nasrid Palaces Entry Ticket★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 15,130 reviews
- 3Alhambra & Gardens Tour w/Nasrid Palaces Option★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 6,437 reviews
Zambra in the Sacromonte caves
The caves above the Darro were dug out by Roma families who settled Sacromonte, and the zambra danced in them is its own form: the performers sit along the whitewashed wall and come out one at a time into a room barely wider than a corridor. A few dozen seats, a guitar close enough to touch, and no microphones anywhere.
- 1Flamenco Show in La Alboreá★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 5,423 reviews
- 2Flamenco Show at Cuevas Los Tarantos Tickets★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 2,051 reviews
- 3Flamenco Show in Albaycin – Jardines de Zoraya★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 1,234 reviews
The road up the Veleta
Mainland Spain’s highest road leaves the city, climbs past the ski station and keeps going towards 2,500 metres and beyond. On a clear morning the Mediterranean is visible from up there, which is how people in Granada end up claiming they skied and swam on the same day. The top section closes with the snow.
- 1Sierra Nevada Safari Tour to 2500 m with a Drink★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 1,466 reviews
- 2Sierra Nevada Safari tour up to 2500 meters high★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 673 reviews
- 3Sierra Nevada Small Group E-Bike Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 282 reviews
Granada is an hour from a white mountain village and two from a mosque-cathedral.
The Alpujarras hang off the south face of the Sierra Nevada in terraces of flat-roofed white houses. Córdoba and Seville are a road trip west. The Costa Tropical keeps beaches that nobody outside Andalusia talks about. Most of these leave early and have you back for dinner.
The Albaicín is a street map that refuses to help you.
The lanes were laid out to confuse an army and they are still doing it. Come out at San Nicolás for the view everybody photographs, then walk back down the Carrera del Darro after dark, when the groups have all gone up the hill and the river is the loudest thing in the street.
Every walk through old Granada →
In August the Alhambra courtyards are unbearable by noon.
The city sits in a bowl with the mountains holding the heat in, and from July to early September the afternoon is simply not usable outdoors. The answer has not changed in six hundred years: be out early, then get behind thick walls. Arab baths, the cathedral, a cave with a guitar in it, and a shaded table.
You can be standing on snow forty minutes after leaving the cathedral.
The ski station sits above 2,000 metres and the road carries on climbing towards the Veleta behind it. In summer the same ground is walking and mountain-bike country, and the gorge at Monachil — hanging bridges strung over Los Cahorros — is a half-day out that starts on a city bus.
- 1Sierra Nevada Safari Tour to 2500 m with a Drinkfrom $85
- 2Los Cahorros de Monachil Canyon Hiking Tourfrom $54
- 3Sierra Nevada Safari tour up to 2500 meters highfrom $102
By place — the hill, the hills below it, and the roads out
By kind of day — palace, walk, table or mountain
The hill, then the hill opposite, then one road out. In that order.
Sacromonte
TapasThe newest reviews from Granada.
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Antequera and Torcal from Granada in a small group up to 7 people
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Complete Private Tour of Alhambra with Nasrid Palaces
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Private Night Tour of the Alhambra in Granada (includes tickets)
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Albaicín and Sacromonte Sunset Tour & Flamenco Show
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Alhambra Comlex + Nasrid Palaces + Alcazaba Guided Tour
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Alhambra Private Tour: Nasrid Palaces, Alcazaba & Generalife
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