Alhambra Small Group from the New Partal Gardens to the Nasrid Palaces

A small group and a guide whose interest is in the history and the culture of the Alhambra rather than in getting round it quickly.

The route is unusual in where it starts. Most visits begin at the ticket office and head for the palaces. This one opens in the new Partal gardens, out on the terraces looking across the valley to the Albaicín, which is the view that explains the geography of Granada in one glance: the Moorish quarter on one hill, the Moorish court on the other, and the ravine between them.

From there the Generalife palace, then the part of the Medina that survives inside the walls, the streets where the court's servants and craftsmen lived.

The Nasrid Palaces come last, which is the right order. By the time you reach them you know who built the place, who lived in it and what they could see from their own windows.

The group is kept small so the guide can work at conversation pitch, which in rooms with this much detail on the walls is the difference between a tour and a queue.