Castles · Tour

Alhambra in a Group of Ten: Three Faiths, One Hill, Sierra Nevada Views

Around ten people, which is small enough that the guide can talk rather than announce. The angle here is that the Alhambra is not a Muslim monument with Christian additions. It is a hill that three cultures used in turn, and the tour is built to show all three: the Moorish castle and the Generalife gardens the Nasrids made, the Christian buildings the conquerors inserted afterwards, and the Jewish presence in a kingdom where all three lived, traded and argued at once. Granada was the last place in western Europe where that arrangement held. The route takes in the Nasrid Palaces, the Alcazaba, the Generalife and the outside of the Palace of Charles V, with the queue skipped at the gate. The Alcazaba is where the geography lands. From the towers you get Granada below and the Sierra Nevada behind it, still holding snow into the spring, and the reason a fortress went here rather than anywhere else becomes a matter of looking rather than listening. Getting up to the meeting point is possible on foot, by the C30 or C32 bus, by taxi or on the tourist train.