Sorry for the delay on this one, after the ramp-up.

You may only purchase half-day tickets to visit the Alhambra.  Ours were in the afternoon.  Tickets must be purchased in advance, and purchasing them was a bit of a drama in itself.  Problems with the website on the Mac, combined with a general fear of international credit cards, meant that it took us about four tries of the course of a week to actually purchase tickets.  We originally tried to get morning tickets because there are fewer sold.  In theory, we would have been able to see the sights with fewer other tourists around. However, it turned out that the crowds weren’t crushing in October, so we were just as happy to take an afternoon slot because it was about an hour longer.

The Alhambra, originally Qal’at al-Hambra or “The Red Fortress” was the seat of the Sultan when the Moors ruled Granada.  It’s a palace complex that dates from around 1300.  We’ve learned that it’s one of the biggest tourist attractions for Europeans in Europe.  And we certainly did meet people from all over the world there.

First, we visited the Generalife (pronunced hen-er-al-LEE-fay, yes we got it wrong too).  This was the garden retreat of the Nasrid princes and their harems, and thus the buildings are really just there to give one a place to sleep amongst the fountains, ponds, and greenery.

Part of the Generalife gardens

There are books of romantic lore from the Generalife about harem favorites meeting their lovers in secret in secluded parts of the gardens.

From there, we moved on to tour the actual complex of Nasrid palaces.  In addition to your visit being limited to morning or afternoon on a certain day, you had a special appointment time to see the palaces.  Ours was for 4:30.  Fortunately, they only tracked when you entered and didn’t particularly care when you left.

These are much smaller than the kind of homes you would expect for European nobility.  In fact, when Europeans moved into the area later, they built doors between the palaces to combine two or more into one larger palace. Even the Sultan’s audience room is a fraction of the size of what you’d expect from a king.  The Sultan sat between the two doors in the picture below on cushions for his audiences.

The Sultan's audience room

However, what they lack in space, the palaces make up in decoration.  Virtually every surface is covered in frescoes and carvings, most of which incorporate prayers in Arabic so artfully that we had trouble figuring out where the words ended and abstract decoration began.

A random arch in a Nasrid palace

The grounds of the palaces are also impressive.  There are many long, rectangular ponds that are intended to reflect the walls and gardens of the palaces around them.  The effect was supposed to be peaceful and give the illusion of more space.  Did it ever.

The Partal palace and its mirror pond

We were really amazed by the visit.  The extra hour from the afternoon visit was useful because we stayed until the sun set and had to find our way back to Granada proper in the dark.  We have about 200 other pictures that we hope to put up in a separate gallery if we get organized enough.