8. Private Alhambra Tour From Malaga & Surrounds
Learn about the history of Granada on this six-hour guided tour of the Alhambra and Generalife summer palace with a skip-the-line ticket. A specialist and historian guide will lead you around the vast complex, dating back more than 600 years. Marvel at a magnificent mix of Islamic art and culture.
Your tour includes hotel pick-up and drop-off via private coach. Then, you will be driven to the Alhambra (about 1.5 hours) to visit the Alhambra with your official tour guide. See Nasrid Palace where you will enjoy the Mexuar, Comares and Lions courtyard; Alcazaba - the Military Fortification; and Generalife the recreational Palace and Gardens. After the 2.5-hour tour, enjoy an hour on your own exploring outside or inside Alhambra where you can visit shops, restaurants and museums.
On this guided tour you will feel the spirit of the last Muslim bastion in Spain. Yusuf is still here – in spirit. So is his father, Ismail I, and his son, Muhammed V. These three sultans were largely responsible for the Palacio Nazaríes – the 14th-century miracle that shines as the Alhambra’s jewel. To amble through these chambers and corridors is to step into Al-Andalus, to feel the energy of a civilization that held such a significant portion of Europe in its grip for eight centuries. Its matters of state still whisper in the Mexuar – a meeting place for ministers, all floral tiles and tapering columns, whose later conversion into a chapel could not conceal its Moorish origins. Its afternoons at play still haunt the Patio de los Leones – an intricate courtyard, the core of royal life under Muhammed V, where fountains splash. And its sophistication still flickers around the Palacio de Comares.