Visiting The Alhambra

You should come to Panera. We had a morning ticket, entered the Palace at 10:30 and spent the whole day in the Alhambra and enter those other areas with no problems. Our tickets were checked but I didn't think there was any time restrictions but that was in January. Maybe summer is different.

The Nasrid palace is the only place that you need a reservation to enter and once you're inside you are not required to leave by a certain time but you cannot go out and then go back in. IMO if you have a morning ticket I do not think that you will still be in this one area at 2:00. You can wonder around the Alcazaba, the Generalife gardens, etc. to your hearts content. We were there in April 2010 and spent about 6 hours in total. It was a high light of our trip to Spain and that was plenty of time for us.

I thought if you have a morning ticket you cannot gain entry to other ticketed areas after 2:00. Is this not true?

Thank you for your replies. Rick Steve's information on the Alhambra is that you cannot enter any of these places after 2:00. But I am not seeing that anywhere else. That is why I was wondering if anyone had personally experienced that. We were thinking of a late morning/early afternoon visit to the Nasrid Palace and then visiting the other areas, which would probably be after 2:00.

We visited the Alhambra a week ago, and booked tickets two days in advance. Some slots for the Nasrid Palace were fully booked by the time I went online. The situation would be worse in high season. You can book tickets online at www.alhambradegranada.org/en/. Entry tickets are either for the morning or for the afternoon, and visits to the Nasrid Palace are strictly in half-hour slots. You will not be allowed in to the Nasrid Palace at other than your booked time, and areas like the Alcazaba can only be entered once. Your tickets are checked at various places, and we saw visitors turned away from the Alcazaba because there was insufficient time before they were due at the Nasrid Palace. Although your visit will be highly organised as far as time is concerned, and there will probably be a lot of other visitors, the atmosphere is quite relaxed and friendly, and the Alhambra is well worth a visit. We were entitled to reduced rate tickets because we are over 65 and E.U. citizens. However, we were not asked for proof of our status at any point. Perhaps we just looked the part! If you book online and pay with a credit card, the ticket machines are tucked away in a corner. You just put your card in and the ticket comes out. There is no need for a PIN or booking code number.

One further note to the above: we were pre-booked but to obtain the actual admission ticket we needed the SAME credit card for the ticket machine that we had used to make the booking. The day we were there we were able to avoid a very long line by using the machines. You have to go around the line to a little building just past where the general public is lining up. When we were there, with the morning ticket, you can wander about as long as you like.

You cannot enter other ticketed areas after 2:00 if you have a morning ticket. That includes the fort and Generalife Palace. But you can wander the grounds and Generalife gardens as long as you want. If your Nasird Palace entry is close to 2:00, you'll need to visit the other ticketed areas first. I'd plan between 1-2 hours for the Nasrid Palace itself.