Everything you need to know
Day trip details
To see current prices for each rate (adults, children, students and infants), select your preferred date in the booking calendar. The price shown in the calendar is always the final price.
Check the available days and times directly in the booking calendar: it updates in real time according to the season.
There are three pick-up points in central Seville. The one you choose is also where the day ends.
C. Trajano 6, Casco Antiguo, 41001 Seville · View on Google Maps
C. Zaragoza 1, Casco Antiguo, 41001 Seville · View on Google Maps
C. Rastro 12A, 41003 Seville · View on Google Maps
Not every pick-up point is available on every date: the booking calendar shows which ones you can choose and the exact time. We recommend arriving with time to spare.
Alhambra tickets are issued in the visitor’s name. The monument checks an identity document against the name on the ticket at the entrance to the Nasrid Palaces, so every traveler must bring a valid passport or national ID card on the day.
Entry to the Nasrid Palaces is by timed slot, fixed when the booking is made. It cannot be changed on the day and there is no re-entry if you miss it.
The Alhambra ticket is not refundable, even when the rest of the booking is cancelled in time. See the cancellation policy below.
Round-trip transport from Seville and a professional guide for the day.
Admission to the Alhambra, including the Nasrid Palaces, with a guided tour of three to four hours inside the monument.
Weather permitting, a walk up through the Albaicin Alto to the San Nicolas viewpoint after the guided tour.
Free time in the centre of Granada afterwards.
Food and drink are not included. There is free time for lunch.
The order of the visits may change depending on the group, the time of year or the entry slot assigned to the group.
Bring the passport or ID document of every traveler. Without it the Nasrid Palaces cannot be entered, and the ticket is not refundable.
Comfortable footwear. The Alhambra is large, largely outdoors and walked for three to four hours, with cobbles, ramps and steps throughout.
It is a long day, around thirteen hours, with roughly five of them on the road.
Granada sits at the foot of the Sierra Nevada and is colder than Seville in winter and cooler at night all year. Bring a layer.
Bring some water and a snack. In summer add sun protection and a hat: much of the Alhambra has no shade.
There is free time for lunch. You can eat at a local bar or restaurant, on which your guide can make recommendations, or bring your own picnic.
Cancellation is free up to 48 hours before the activity, a longer notice period than most of our day trips.
One exception: the Alhambra tickets are bought in the traveler’s name at the moment of booking and the monument does not refund them. That part of the price cannot be returned even when you cancel in time.
The best-rated guide to Seville
First-hand local advice, more than 90 pages in PDF: what to see, where to eat, museums and palaces, day trips, opening hours and prices, and tourist maps of the city. Book any activity with us and it’s yours. Get the guide
Eduardo BallesterosSeville local and author of the guideThe day trip
Three hours inside the last palace of Al-Andalus
The Alhambra is not one building but a walled city on a hill: a fortress, a set of royal palaces and a summer garden, built by the last Muslim dynasty in Spain and handed over intact in 1492. This day trip goes inside it, Nasrid Palaces included, with a guide.
East to Granada
The drive from Seville takes about two and a half hours, across olive country and up towards the mountains. Granada sits at around 700 metres with the Sierra Nevada behind it, and the Alhambra is visible from a long way off, red against the trees.
The Alcazaba and the Generalife
The guided visit runs to three to four hours inside the walls. It takes in the Alcazaba, the military fortress at the western tip with the whole city laid out below it, and the Generalife, the summer estate on the hill opposite, where the water channels and clipped hedges have been running since the fourteenth century.
The Nasrid Palaces
The palaces are the reason people come, and admission to them is included. Room after room of carved stucco, honeycomb vaults, tiled dados and Arabic inscriptions cut into the plaster, arranged around courtyards with water at the centre. Entry is by timed slot and the guide takes the group through it.
The Albaicin, and free time in the city
Weather permitting, the day continues with a walk up through the Albaicin Alto to the San Nicolas viewpoint, which faces the Alhambra across the valley. After that the time is yours: the cathedral, the tea houses, and the tapas bars where a drink still comes with something to eat.
Important: the order and format of the route may vary depending on the time of year, the weather, road conditions and each town’s local holidays. Your guide will organize the day in whatever way works best for the group.
Your questions answered
Frequently asked questions
Yes, including the Nasrid Palaces, which are the part that sells out first and that many cheaper tours leave out. A guide takes the group through the monument for three to four hours.
Yes, or a national ID card. Alhambra tickets carry the visitor’s name and the monument checks identity documents at the entrance to the Nasrid Palaces. Without one you cannot go in, and the ticket is not refundable.
Cancellation is free up to 48 hours before, but the Alhambra tickets are the exception: they are bought in your name when you book and the monument does not refund them, so that part of the price is not returned.
Around thirteen hours, of which roughly five are on the road and three inside the Alhambra. The exact departure time for your date appears in the booking calendar.
Weather permitting, yes. After the guided visit the group walks up through the Albaicin Alto to the San Nicolas viewpoint. It is the one part of the day that depends on conditions, since it is an open climb.
No. There is free time for lunch in the city, at a local bar or restaurant, on which your guide can make recommendations, or you can bring your own picnic.
Spanish, English, French and Italian. You choose when you book. Usually the guide runs the day in one language, although it is sometimes run in two at once, with the guide alternating between them.
From central Seville. There are three pick-up points and the booking calendar shows which ones are available on your date. The pick-up point is also the drop-off point.
Yes, round trip. You travel in a comfortable, air-conditioned vehicle, van, minibus or coach, depending on how many travelers have booked for that date. Some have a toilet on board; if yours does not, you can ask your guide to stop at a service area.
It depends on the bookings for each date, and groups are usually small. In high season the group is split into two or more subgroups: as a rule, groups are no larger than 30 people. If you would rather not share the vehicle with anyone, you can book this day trip as a private group.
A lot, and this is the one to think about. The Alhambra is walked for three to four hours over cobbles, ramps and steps, largely in the open, and the Albaicin afterwards is a climb. Comfortable shoes are not optional.
Yes, and there is a reduced rate for children. Bear in mind three to four hours of walking inside the monument and a thirteen-hour day. Children need their own ticket and their own identity document, like everyone else.
We would not recommend it. The Alhambra has adapted routes, but this is a group visit on a fixed timetable over cobbles, ramps and steps, followed by a climb through the Albaicin.
Yes, without flash and without tripods. The Nasrid Palaces are dimly lit by design, so a phone will do better than you expect and a flash will do worse.
Planning your visit to the Alhambra
Practical questions about the monument itself, useful background before you travel.
The royal residence at the heart of the Alhambra, built in the fourteenth century under Yusuf I and Muhammad V. They are three linked palaces: the Mexuar for administration, the Comares palace for diplomacy, and the Palace of the Lions for private life. This is the part with the carved stucco, the honeycomb vaults and the lion fountain.
The Nasrid dynasty, the last Muslim rulers in the Iberian Peninsula, from the thirteenth century onwards, on a hill that already held a ninth-century fortress. It was surrendered to the Catholic Monarchs in 1492 and, unusually, was not destroyed. UNESCO listed it in 1984.
It comes from the Arabic al-qala al-hamra, the red fort, for the colour the walls turn in low sun. The iron-rich clay used in the ramparts is what gives it the tone.
The summer estate of the Nasrid rulers, on the hill facing the palaces, built as a place to escape the formality of the court. Its gardens and water channels are among the oldest surviving Moorish gardens anywhere, and they have been continuously cultivated for seven centuries.
Charles V had it built in the 1520s, partly on top of Nasrid buildings, as an imperial residence beside the conquered palace. It was never finished or roofed until the twentieth century. Its circular courtyard inside a square block is a landmark of Spanish Renaissance architecture, however incongruous it looks.
Three hours is the working minimum for the Alcazaba, the Nasrid Palaces and the Generalife at a reasonable pace. Visitors who want to linger, or who add the Partal gardens and the baths, take four or five.
To stop tickets being resold. Demand far exceeds the daily limit on the Nasrid Palaces, so tickets are personal, carry the holder’s name, and are checked against a passport or ID card at the door. It is the reason you cannot simply buy someone else’s spare ticket.
Spring and autumn. The Generalife gardens are at their best in April and May, and October light on the red walls is the reason photographers come then. Summer is hot and the site is largely unshaded; winter is cold but clear, with snow on the Sierra Nevada behind the palaces.
