Granada, Spain: guide to visiting the Alhambra The ticket conundrum The town strictly limits the number of visitors to the Alhambra to 6,600 people each day, with just 300 every half-hour to the Nasrid palaces. Opening times are mid-March to mid-October 8.30am-2pm and 2pm-8pm, and mid-November to mid-March 8.30am-2pm and 2pm-6pm. Entry costs €13/£11. Two thirds of the tickets can be bought up to three months ahead through Caixa bank (0034 934 923750; in Spain: 902 100095; alhambra-tickets.es) and printed out from Caixa machines in town or at the Alhambra entrance. Book well ahead: I made the mistake of arriving in the city when tickets were already sold out for days. Even when the allocated number has been sold, roughly a third of the tickets are available on the day, but only to those who turn up at the ticket office at the Alhambra. This is a slightly nerve-racking experience as it's hard to estimate from the queue snaking around in front of you just how many places are left. Aim to get there when the office opens at 8am and the probability of getting tickets is high. There are also night visits (Friday and Saturday; winter 8pm-9.30pm, summer 10pm-11.30pm), but you can't see both the Nasrid palaces and the Generalife, another palace just across a ravine, with beautiful formal gardens, on one visit. There are some alternatives. One is the Bono Turistico (three days, €25/£21; five days, €30/£25), which includes the Alhambra as well as other sights and bus trips. Then there are guided tours that pick up from hotels and have reserved slots, for a hefty €49 (£41). A few parts of the Alhambra are accessible without tickets: the colonnaded courtyard of the late 15th-century Palacio de Carlos V, the church, bathhouse and the craft shops and hotels along the calle Real de la Alhambra. The visit The order in which you visit the parts of the Alhambra will depend on what time you have been allocated for the Nasrid palaces (indicated on the ticket); if you book sufficiently far ahead, you will be able to choose which half-hour slot you want. Ideally, start with the Generalife, then cross the bridge into the Alhambra proper, finishing with the Nasrid palaces. You really do need a good half day to visit everything, so getting up early has its rewards. Keep your ticket to be bleeped into the various sections. Ahead of you when you arrive, the Generalife was the sultans' summer retreat, revealing water gardens that make most fountains seem heavy-handed. Some people argue that the Reales Alcázares gardens in Seville are even better, but the Generalife wins with its hillside site, its countless viewpoints, the interaction between pavilions and patios and glimpses of landscapes beyond, the cypresses carved into shadowy walls and archways, the reflecting pools, perfectly mastered jets of water, and the staircase where a stream of water gushes down the banisters. Crossing the bridge through Torre del Agua gate brings you into the Alhambra proper, with its fortified gateways, excavated residential districts and Arab bathhouse lit by star-shaped openings in the roof. The oldest part is the Alcazaba citadel, begun in the ninth century, with three square towers, once a place to keep watch for invaders but now prized for their views. At the heart of the complex are the Nasrid palaces, three interconnecting palaces built in the 14th century by the Nasrid kings, last of the dynasties to rule over Spain. Again there is that interaction between architecture and gardens, as council rooms and royal apartments alternate with courtyards and delicate, flower-shaped fountains, but it is the decoration that is mind-boggling. Everywhere you look are fascinating details: interlocking glazed tiles in deep reds, blacks and greens, lines of the Koran in Arabic script, creamy plaster reliefs with geometrical patterns that seem to flow in one continuous line, the inlaid cedar ceiling of the Ambassadors' Salon or the sheer complexity of the stalactite dome of the Abencerrages Hall, which has intrigued artists, architects and mathematicians for centuries. Lingering amid all this Moorish splendour, the Palacio de Carlos V, built by Emperor Charles V in 1527, is defiantly European and Renaissance, but even it springs some surprises. While the exterior is solidly square with massive rusticated blocks and bronze lions' heads, inside is an impressive two-storey, galleried circular courtyard - an echo of bullfighting, perhaps. On the ground floor, the Museo de la Alhambra contains decorative arts and architectural fragments. On the first floor, the Museo de Bellas Artes veers slightly oddly between Baroque altarpieces and modern paintings. Exploring the town There is a lot more to Granada than the Alhambra. In the city centre, the Moorish, Jewish and Catholic past piles up around the vast cathedral (€3.50/£2.90), which has lots of elaborate chapels and two ornate gilded organs. An even greater symbol of the Catholic reconquest and the unification of the kingdoms of Granada and Castille is the Capilla Real (capillarealgranada.com, €3.50/£2.90), containing the Carrara marble tombs of Ferdinand and Isabella and Juana the Mad and Philip the Handsome, which you enter through the Lonja, the 15th-century silk merchants' exchange. Across the street, the Alcaiceria, home to a craft market and souvenir shops, has kept the carved arcades of the Arab souk, though most of it was rebuilt after a fire in 1843. Nearby, Plaza Bibarrambla, containing the Gigantones fountain - four melancholy giants, Granada's equivalent of Manneken-Pis - is popular in the morning with locals, who breakfast on hot chocolate and churros at the Art Nouveau Gran Café Bib-Rambla; in the evening the square's restaurant terraces fill up, and entertainers ply their trade. While the modern city feels busy and dynamic, the Albaicín, the original Arab quarter, is sleepier and more intimate. Linking the two districts is the long Plaza Nueva, lined with small bars and cafés and the spiky facade of the 16th-century Real Chancillería, now the law courts, on one side. At the end of the square, the Church of Santa Ana is a typically Granadan mutation, built over a mosque with the minaret converted into a belfry. Behind the church the River Darro is crossed by several humpbacked bridges and bordered by the ancient Carrera del Darro, which provides a lovely route into the Albaicín before branching off to the narrow streets and stairways that criss-cross the hill. Like the Alhambra, the Albaicín is Unesco-listed and many of its buildings have been sensitively restored. Some are open to the public - including Casa de Castril, now the archaeological museum, which has an ornate Renaissance facade; Casa de Porras, a 16th-century Mudéjar mansion, now a cultural centre; and El Bañuelo, the old Arab baths. The lower Albaicín is busy with teterias (tea rooms) and souvenir shops, especially along Calle Calderería Nueva. Above is a captivating maze where it is less a question of seeing sights than losing yourself amid the whitewashed houses, carved stone doorways of aristocratic residences and vegetation overflowing from the gardens of the carmens, cisterns and monasteries, or climbing up to the Mirador de San Nicolás, which is often crowded with people coming for a last gaze at the Alhambra. There are two hotels within the ramparts of the Alhambra itself, and they need to be booked well in advance. The Parador San Francisco (0034 958 221440; paradores-spain.com, doubles from €264/£220) occupies the 15th-century royal convent put up by King Ferdinand over a Moorish mansion, while Hotel América (227471; hotelamericagranada.com, doubles from €90/£75) feels much more bohemian, with tiled tables in a central courtyard shaded by creepers. In town, NH Victoria (536216; nh-hotels.com, doubles from €79/£66), occupying a grand 19th-century domed corner-building crowning Granada's main shopping intersection, is a sleek, modern design-hotel. Hotel Casa 1800 (210700; hotelcasa1800granada.com, doubles from €135/£113) is a lovely hotel in a noble historic house in the Albaicin quarter. Rooms with beams and antiques are reached from a galleried central courtyard where tea and cakes are served in the afternoon. Meliá Granada (227400; solmelia.com; doubles from €75/£63), on a smart, arcaded shopping street, has good service and an excellent buffet breakfast. Hotel Las Nieves (265311; hotellasnieves.com; doubles from €40/£36) is a great-value pink stucco hotel in the shopping district. Rooms have recently been jazzily redecorated. Eating out Running off Plaza del Carmen, Calle Navas is the equivalent of tapas row. Most bars will serve you a croquette, ham or other tapas when you order a drink, and most have areas for dining. It's often hard to squeeze in along the bar at Los Diamantes (Calle Navas, 26; 227070), with its narrow, tiled interior. It offers brains as a speciality, although you'll find most people nibbling fried prawns. La Chicota (Calle Navas, 20; 220349), an offshoot of a celebrated literary café on Plaza del Campillo, is a friendly place for bar-side tapas, or you can sit at rustic tables for excellent local specialities. At Las Copas (Calle Navas, 19; 224294) you can perch on stools around wine barrels or sit at tables for big platters of fried squid and whitebait. Flights to Granada airport from Britain, with British Airways-Iberia, involve changing at Madrid. It is generally faster and more economical to fly to Malaga, 78 miles from Granada, served by bus from the airport (2 hours 20 mins) or around an hour away by car. Airlines that fly to Malaga include British Airways (britishairways.com) from Heathrow from £39, Flybe (flybe.com) from Exeter and Southampton from £60, and easyJet (easyjet.com) from Bristol, Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, Gatwick, Stansted and Luton from £50. For more information, visit alhambra-patronato.es; turgranada.es