Most Instagrammable Places in Granada — Trip Planner

What's actually worth your time in Granada

The Alhambra's Nasrid Palaces admit you inside a half-hour slot printed on the ticket and refuse you outside it, and the name on that ticket must match your passport. General admission is 22,27 euro online and sells out weeks ahead. The Generalife gardens repay the extra walking. Mirador San Nicolas at sunset is the postcard, but arrive an hour early or you see heads.

Granada after dark

Nights here are cheap and student-driven, the university keeping prices low and bars busy midweek. For most visitors the tapas crawl along Navas and Elvira is the whole evening, and it winds up around one or two. Sacromonte's cave venues stage zambra flamenco, Granada's own gitano form rather than the Seville tablao version. Pedro Antonio de Alarcon is where the students actually drink.

Granada's museums, and which one to pick

The Capilla Real keeps Ferdinand and Isabella's lead coffins in the crypt below their marble effigies and bans photography outright; it is the one ticket people skip in Granada and later regret. The Alhambra Museum inside the Palace of Charles V comes included with your monument ticket. Across the river in Zaidin, the Parque de las Ciencias is Andalusia's largest science museum.

Granada with kids, realistically

Granada punishes wheels: the Albaicin and Sacromonte are cobbled and steeply stepped, and the Alhambra circuit runs well over two kilometres with little shade. Take the C30 minibus up to the monument and the C31 or C32 into the Albaicin rather than walking. Under-twelves enter the Alhambra free. Older children get far more from it; the science park suits everyone from about four up.

When the weather turns in Granada

A wet day is the argument for the hammam, and Hammam Al Andalus on Calle Santa Ana runs bathing sessions by appointment in a restored bathhouse. The cathedral and Capilla Real stand side by side under cover, with the Monasterio de San Jeronimo cloister five minutes away. The Alhambra stays open in rain and the crowds thin noticeably, which is worth exploiting.

When to go to Granada

The month to avoid is July — around 36°C (97°F) with roughly 0 rain days. Prices and crowds track the weather here: May is the sweet spot, July the month most people skip.

Pack for peak season: Summer clothes, plus one light layer for air-con and evenings, Comfortable walking shoes — every guide on this site assumes you'll use them.

Where to base yourself in Granada

• Albayzín — Moorish hilltop quarter — narrow lanes, viewpoints, traditional carmen houses.
• Sacromonte — Cave-house district with flamenco shows and Roma history.
• Realejo — Old Jewish quarter — street art, tapas bars, walking distance from the Alhambra.