Granada Travel Guide

The Alhambra is Granada's most famous and magnificent landmark, and the world's best-preserved and most exquisite Islamic Moorish palace complex—a palace and fortress atop a hill overlooking Granada, the pinnacle of Islamic art and architecture, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the not-to-be-missed number-one sight of Granada and all Spain. The Alhambra (meaning 'the Red Castle') was built in the Middle Ages as the palace and fortress of the Nasrid dynasty, the last Islamic Moorish kingdom in Spain (al-Andalus)—Granada was the final stronghold of Islamic Moorish rule in Spain. This grand complex sits on a hill overlooking Granada, made of fortress, palaces and gardens; it is the pinnacle of Islamic art and architecture and the most brilliant, precious legacy of Islamic civilization in Spain. Most breathtaking is its core, the Nasrid Palaces—the stunning, exquisite Islamic decorative art (intricate stucco, stalactite-like domes, brilliant colored tiles, fine calligraphy and geometric patterns, and murmuring fountain waters and light, as in the famous Court of the Lions); besides, the complex has the old Alcazaba fortress (climb the tower for a city panorama) and the exquisite Generalife gardens. With its unparalleled refinement and elegance, the palace captivated countless writers and poets (such as Washington Irving's 'Tales of the Alhambra'). Visiting Granada's Alhambra, marvelling at the exquisite, elegant pinnacle of Islamic art, is a soul-stirring, beautiful experience in Spain (book tickets well ahead).

Granada Cathedral rises at the heart of the old town beneath the Sierra Nevada, one of Spain's Renaissance masterpieces. Begun in 1523 over the city's main mosque as a Gothic project, its destiny changed when architect Diego de Siloe reimagined it on a grand Renaissance plan; construction stretched nearly two centuries to 1704. The main facade, by Baroque master Alonso Cano, glows in white stone beneath the snowy peaks. Inside, soaring Corinthian columns and stained glass create a pure, luminous space, and the adjacent Royal Chapel (ticketed) holds the tombs of the Catholic Monarchs, Isabella and Ferdinand. In the Alcaiceria market nearby, the spice and tea scents of Moorish Granada still linger.

Mirador San Nicolás is Granada's most celebrated viewpoint, high in the Albayzín facing the Alhambra and the distant Sierra Nevada. At dusk the warm light gilds the Red Fortress and turns the snow peaks rose, while street guitarists play — often called one of 'the most beautiful sunsets in Spain'. Lovers and travellers gather here; it is the most romantic and lively public living room of the Albayzín at twilight.

The Albayzín is Granada's Moorish old quarter on the hill, its whitewashed lanes and viewpoints terracing toward the Alhambra, inscribed with it as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984. It keeps the Islamic street pattern, churches built from mosques and a living hillside community — the classic place to gaze upon the 'Red Fortress'.

The Royal Chapel beside Granada's cathedral, completed around 1517 in the Isabeline Gothic style, is the resting place of Spain's Catholic Monarchs: the marble tombs of Isabella I and Ferdinand II lie side by side in the crypt, alongside Queen Joanna and her husband Philip. A small museum preserves the queen's crown and sceptre, Flemish tapestries and other royal relics, while the sixteenth-century ironwork screen is a marvel in itself. Modest in size but immense in historical weight, the chapel slots easily into a walking route with the cathedral and the Albaicin, needing barely half an hour of your time.

The Generalife, the Nasrid sultans' summer palace begun in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, takes its name from what is often translated as the garden of the noble one, and offers the finest overview of the Alhambra itself. Its Court of the Water Channel is a masterpiece of Islamic garden design: a long rill slicing through the courtyard, crossed jets dancing in the sunlight, box hedges clipped for centuries. In the Court of the Sultana stands an ancient cypress wrapped in legend. Inscribed with the Alhambra as UNESCO World Heritage in 1984, the gardens are at their best early in the morning before the crowds arrive.