The Alhambra sells out. Everything else in Granada does not.
Which Alhambra ticket actually gets you inside the Nasrid Palaces. What a cave flamenco night in Sacromonte costs. Whether the Alpujarra villages beat Sierra Nevada on your one free day. Reviews of every tour you can book in Granada.
The Nasrid Palaces, the Albaicín at sunset, a cave in Sacromonte, snow at 2,500 metres.
Four bookings that carry a first trip to Granada. What each one costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The one to book firstAlhambra & Nasrid Palaces Tour with TicketsPalace tickets plus a guide who knows which courtyard to stand in. Your Nasrid slot is a fixed half hour, so everything else that day bends around it.
02The golden hourAlbaicín and Sacromonte Guided Sunset Walking TourUp through the Albaicín lanes to San Nicolás, arriving as the Alhambra turns copper and the sierra goes pink behind it.
03The night in a caveFlamenco Show at Cuevas Los Tarantos TicketsZambra in a whitewashed cave on the Sacromonte hillside. Close enough that the dancer knocks dust off the wall beside you.
04The day at altitudeSierra Nevada Safari Tour to 2500 m with a DrinkA four-wheel-drive run up the highest road in Europe, snow beside the track well into June, Granada laid out flat below.
Nasrid Palaces, fast-track, gardens or a night visit. Pick before you fly.
Every Alhambra ticket is a different building. The Nasrid Palaces are the ones in the photographs and the only part with a capped half-hour slot, so the choice is really about whether your ticket includes them.
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · Alhambra & Nasrid Palaces Tour with Tickets
With the Nasrid PalacesThe courtyards, the fountain of lions, the carved ceilings.
Fast-track entryStraight past the ticket queue at the Justice Gate.
Gardens and GeneralifeWater stairs and cypress walks on the hill above.
After darkLit courtyards, cool air, a fraction of the daytime crowd.
All 84 ways into the Alhambra →
Granada is a hill, a hillside and a mountain range, in that order.
The palace on the ridge, the Moorish quarter facing it across the Darro, the cave hillside above that, then the streets underneath, the white villages up the valley and the Mediterranean an hour down the road. Six places to build days out of.
Sacromonte was carved out by hand and still puts on a show every night.
Across the Darro from the palace, the Albaicín climbs in cobbles and the Sacromonte caves start where the lanes give up. Walk it at sunset, eat halfway up, and be in a cave by ten.
The days out more travellers take than anything else in Granada.
Every Granada tour we have reviewed →Nine tours out of the whole city catalogue, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Alhambra & Nasrid Palaces Tour with Tickets
Spend three hours inside Granada’s Alhambra with entry to the Nasrid Palaces, Alcazaba, Generalife, Palace of Charles V, and Mosque Baths. A live guide leads the walk in English, Spanish, French, German, or Italian. Choose a private group or a small group of about 10, 20, or 30 people.
From · $64
Read our review →
2
Alhambra & Generalife Fast-Track Guided Tour
from $88
3
Alhambra & Gardens Tour w/Nasrid Palaces Option
from $23
4
Alhambra Entry Ticket with Audio Guide
from $66
5
Fast-Track Alhambra & Nasrid Palaces Guided Tour
from $56
6
Skip The Line Alhambra and Generalife Guided Tour
from $35
7
Alhambra Ticket and Guided Tour with Nasrid Palaces
from $59
8
Alhambra & Generalife Skip the line Small Group including Nasrid Palaces
from $71
Half of Granada is the view of the other half.
The Alhambra is the only monument in Spain best seen from someone else's street. San Nicolás at sunset is the famous one; the Mirador de San Cristóbal is emptier, the Carrera del Darro is the walk in between, and an electric bike solves the gradient of all three.
Every walk on the hillside →
Granada is the one Spanish city with a ski lift on the skyline.
The road out of the city climbs to 2,500 metres in under an hour, and keeps going to the highest paved pass in Europe. Snow sits in the gullies of the Veleta into July, and from the top you can see the Rif mountains in Morocco on a clear morning.
What a day in Granada actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. The cheapest end of this city is unusually good: the tapas are free and the best viewpoint costs nothing but the climb.
Walking tours of the Albaicín, cave flamenco tickets, cathedral entry and the hop-on train around the old town.
Guided Alhambra mornings with the Nasrid Palaces, the Sierra Nevada safari, tapas crawls and the hammam.
Private guides, the long runs to Córdoba and Seville, and the small-group days that cap the group at eight.
Granada sits inside an hour of snow, sea and three other Andalusian cities.
North to the olive hills of Jaén, west to Córdoba and its mosque, south over the pass to the coast, east up into the Alpujarras. The city is small enough to see in two days and placed so well that the third day is the hard choice.
- 1Alpujarra Villages Guided Day Tourfrom $108
- 2Granada full day: La alhambra completa + el Albaicin y Sacromontefrom $90
- 3Premium Scenic Daytrip to Alpujarra Villages from Granada (Max 8)from $139
Three things Granada does that no other Spanish city does.
Andalusia is full of old towns, tiled patios and guitar music. Zambra danced in a working cave, a free plate with every glass, and a Moorish bathhouse still heated the way it was in the twelfth century are Granada's alone.
Zambra in a cave
The Roma families who settled the Sacromonte hillside cut their houses into the clay and developed their own flamenco form inside them. Zambra is danced in a line down a long narrow room, the audience along both walls close enough to feel the floor. The caves are still lived in, and the show is still in the front room.
- 1Flamenco Show at Cuevas Los Tarantos Tickets★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 2,051 reviews
- 2Flamenco Show in a Cave Restaurant in Granada★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 659 reviews
- 3Sacromonte Caves Flamenco Show with Dinner★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 156 reviews
A plate with every glass
Granada never gave up the tapa. Order a beer or a glass of wine and something to eat comes with it, chosen by the bar, not by you, and the plates get better as the round goes on. Four drinks in the right order is dinner, and the bill is under twenty euros.
- 1Granada Tapas and Wine Small Group Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 807 reviews
- 2Granada Highlights Tour with Tapas Breaks by Electric Bike★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 111 reviews
- 3Granada 3-hour Tapas Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 89 reviews
The Arab baths
The bathhouses under the Alhambra hill are heated, tiled and laid out the way the Nasrid ones were: a cold pool, two warm ones, a hot one, and a room where the ceiling is punched with star-shaped holes. Sessions are ninety minutes, booked in slots, and the phone stays in the locker.
- 1Arabian Baths Experience at Granada’s Hammam Al Ándalus★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 657 reviews
- 2Hammam Experience with Massage at Baños de Elvira★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 455 reviews
- 3Massage Experience in Granada★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 154 reviews
Four Granada bookings that will not wait for your arrival.
Most of this city can be arranged over breakfast on the day. These four run on capped entry slots, one hillside's worth of seats and a mountain road that closes when it wants to.
- 01Alhambra & Nasrid Palaces Tour with TicketsThe Nasrid Palaces admit a fixed number of people per half-hour slot and nothing gets you in without one. High season sells out weeks out.
- 02Alhambra Night Visit Entry TicketThe night visit runs on selected evenings only, and the palaces and the Generalife are open on different nights. Miss it and the next chance may be a week away.
- 03Flamenco Show at Cuevas Los Tarantos TicketsThe Sacromonte caves seat thirty or forty people. Turning up at ten to ask is how you end up at the big tourist tablao instead.
- 04Sierra Nevada Safari Tour to 2500 m with a DrinkThe high track above the ski station runs on weather and snow clearance, and the trucks are small. Bad week, no seats.
At forty degrees the Alhambra hill is a mistake and the city knows it.
Granada sits in a bowl at 700 metres and July and August park there. Locals do the monuments before eleven, disappear until eight, then eat outside until one in the morning. Copy them: a cave, a bathhouse or the mountain road at midday, and the whole hillside after dark.
The city under the hill has the cathedral, the tombs and the free tapas.
Everything in central Granada →
Granada below the Alhambra is flat, tight and made for walking: a cathedral the Catholic Monarchs built over the mosque, their own tombs beside it, and a grid of bars where the plate arrives with the drink and nobody charges you for it.
Cathedral and Royal Chapel, together
Ferdinand and Isabella are downstairs in lead coffins you can walk past. The cathedral above went up over three centuries and shows it. One combo ticket covers both plus three smaller sites.
Four bars, four free plates
Order a drink in Granada and food arrives with it, unasked and unbilled. A guide is worth it for the running order: which bar gives you the good jamón, which one you leave before dessert.
The Albaicín hill without the climb
The Moorish quarter is all cobbles and gradient, which is why half the city tours here run on segways or electric bikes. You reach the viewpoints with your shirt dry.
By quarter, and by how far you will go
By kind of day: palace, cave, table or mountain
Alhambra, Albaicín, Sacromonte, sierra: the order that actually works.
Tapas streets
SacromonteThe newest Granada tour reviews.
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Private tour from Motril to Nerja, Frigiliana and Nerja caves
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Private Tour to The Alhambra and Generalife from Motril port
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Granada Alhambra Private Tour from Motril Puerto
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Half-Day Tour of Jaen, Cathedral, Jewish Quarter and Arab Baths
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Granada Airport to Granada City Private Arrival Transfer
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