Hello blogosphere! I’m back with my fourth installment from our trip to Spain and it’s all about La Alhambra in Granada Spain. After spending our first few days in Madrid we headed off to Granada just to see the famous, the grand, the lovely La Alhambra. My previous post gave an overview of the rest of our time in Granada.
The Alhambra is a complex containing the fortress(alcazaba), palaces and gardens of the Moorish monarchs in Spain. It was built primarily between 1238 and 1538 but there is evidence that some of the buildings have been standing since Roman times. The name comes from the Arabic al-qala’a al-hamra meaning the Red Castle due to the reddish color of the tapia (rammed earth) of which the outer walls were built. After the Moors were expelled in 1492 much of the complex fell into ruin. An earthquake in 1821 caused further damage and in 1828 an architect named José Contreras went about restoring the complex. His son and grandson carried on with the refurbishment through early in the 20th century and restoration continues today. I found an interesting article if anyone might be interested: When the Alhambra was in ruins. The entire complex is about two miles long and most people spend 3-5 hours there. Here’s a map of the entire complex:
I first visited the Alhambra when I was 20 during my junior year abroad in Madrid and as part of the study abroad program at California State University. At the time there were 19 schools in the system and our group had representation from many of those schools. I had the option to study in Madrid or Granada and after our first month in Madrid we took a bus and toured southern Spain with the intent of dropping off the Granada students. I don’t remember how many days this trip lasted but I do recall that we went to Córdoba to see the Mesquita and then on to Sevilla to see the cathedral and Plaza de España. We did not visit the alcazar as we likely didn’t have time. I remember that we spent the night in Sevilla, so we must have gone to the Alhambra the next day. But we didn’t have time to see it all.
When I was planning our trip for 2010 I made sure we went to the Alhambra. When we got to the alcazaba and climbed up to see the great views, I had no memory of going there before. When we got home I looked in my scrapbook to see if there were any clues and there were! In those days there were paper tickets and each section of the Alhambra had a piece that was removed when one entered that part. My stub for the alcazaba was never removed so I did not go there in 1980. That explains why it wasn’t familiar to me.
When we went there in 2010 it was such a hot day that by the time we visited the alcazaba, Carlos V’s palace and the Nasrid palaces we were all too hot and tired to visit the Generalife. So I wanted to be sure to see the Generalife this time. We saw it but not all of it.
We started at the Puerta de la Justicia near the alcazaba, the western end of the complex avoiding the crowd at the main entrance. We had a 10:30 entry time for the Nasrid Palaces and by the time we got through all those rooms and gardens it was time for lunch which I talked about in my first post about our trip in May. We ate at Jardínes Alberto and it was fabulous! First up is a gallery from the Alcazaba.
Next, a gallery of the wondrous Nasrid palaces. This is the only place where you have a timed entry because the palaces are very popular and they need to control the crowd. There were so many people everywhere in the palaces but I managed to get some good photos.
Some garden photos and others that don’t fit in the previous galleries:
After a fabulous and relaxing lunch we headed back to the Alhambra to visit the Generalife. That was a bit confusing and we never got down to the area where the iconic photos are taken of the fountain there. I’m not sure what happened but hubby thought it was because we backtracked? That if we had not exited and come back in we probably would have gotten to the area where that fountain is. I do have one photo of it, alas, it’s from above. By the time we walked all around (not finding that cool fountain) we were both really tired and were ready to call it a day. Still, I’m glad I arranged our day the way I did so that we’d see everything, or mostly everything.
It was a wonderful day! If you’re planning a trip to Spain, do not miss the Alhambra. It was one of the highlights of our trip.
If you missed any of my previous posts, I linked my overview of Granada above, here are the other two.
travels with toby 
Beautiful! Historic! Intricate! !Maravilloso! Thanks for sharing such wonderful pictures!
It is all of those things! Thanks for looking 🤗