The Alhambra - your thoughts for ideal itinerary for the day?

I'm not sure if Rick recommends visiting the Palacio Nazaries at night over visiting it by day, or just as an alternative if you can't get in by day. At least in the 2014 edition of his book, it's the latter. And I certainly endorse that view. A night time visit is IN NO WAY the same as a daytime visit, or an adequate substitute for it. You don't see the whole palace at night, and it looks quite different by spotlight than it does by natural light.

For me, the ideal itinerary would be the earliest Palace entry time possible, followed by seeing the rest of the complex at leisure. This way, you have the smallest possible crowds inside the Palace. Note that once you exit the Palace you can't reenter, but once inside, you can backtrack, and can stay as long as you like (you be "swimming upstream" against the crowd if you backtrack).

I would tend to agree with the previous poster that first thing in the morning may be a better option.We visited the Palace last year with an entry time of 3:00 p.m. and it was very crowded and difficult to take photos. Be advised that even though the tickets are strictly timed, many people will get in line up to 90 minutes ahead of entry. As a result, you may be standing behind people whose tickets are for an hour after your entry time. If you wait for the line to move you will miss your entry and times are strictly enforced. We saw several people denied access. I believe the "entry window" for your ticket is 20-25 minutes. We followed the advice of our B&B owner, who told us to wait until 3:15 and then walk up outside of the ropes to the ticket taker, show them your ticket and be scanned in to the Palace. We spent approximately 6 hours total at Alhambra.

Excellent feedback - you have convinced me to go early! I misinterpreted Rick's comment.

Thank you very much!

On our last visit, also in a September, we got the first afternoon time. We saw the remainder of the complex in the morning, went through the palace, then went to the gardens. I do have to say that we stayed right at the Alhambra complex at hotel America so we’re able to relax in our room between stops. For dinner one night when we were staying there we ate at Jardines Alberto about a 10 minute walk from the hotel near the parking lot entrance. Because of its location it is frequented by mainly tourists, but the staff was friendly and the food good. On the second night we ate downtown and for our last night, we ate at a friend’s house.

I did the night visit to the Nasrid Palaces first, then went back and spent a day seeing all the ticketed areas. I thought that was ideal - the Nasrid looks completely different at night and in daylight. AFAIK the general day ticket includes the Nasrid Palaces.

Hi. We’re doing both- we leave for our trip next week. Early morning visit to the Nasrid Palace then a night visit the following evening.

For any major site like this, I’d say go as early as possible, the key being your entrance to the Palacios Nazaries. The most time spent will be getting up there and through the grounds. My big misconception when visiting was that the Charles V Palace and Generalife Gardens would take a lot of time to visit. In reality, the Charles V Palace is a quick peek, and the gardens are not the biggest (or the best frankly). The gardens at the Alcarzars of Cordoba and Sevilla are probably more involved if that gives you an idea. So, these things can almost be tackled while you’re waiting for your entrance time at the Palace. If anything, I overestimated the time I would spend at the Alhambra.

Hi Ron, we visited Spain last September (beautiful country!) and spent an entire day at the Alhambra. We arrived at 10:00am and walked through the other portions in the lower area, relaxed and ate lunch at a restaurant on site, and then entered the palace with our timed ticket at 2:00pm. We didn’t feel like it was overly crowded. We did queue up to be one of the first ten people for our timed entry. Afterwards, we walked up through the Generalife gardens.

We took the small city bus up and back - very convenient.