The Alhambra Head On From Granada's San Nicolás Parapet

What you see from the parapet

Behind you the square is wide stone, with cypresses, a stone cistern wellhead and the brick Mudejar church of San Nicolás. In front, across the Darro gorge, the Alhambra's walls and towers run along the Sabika ridge, the square bulk of the Comares tower in the middle and the Sierra Nevada snowline above them. This is the best head-on view of the palace complex in Granada.

Flamenco buskers and hawkers work the length of the wall. There is no door and no ticket, and the space in front of the rail is small.

Best time to go

From May to October the parapet goes shoulder-to-shoulder at sunset and the front rail jams solid. Guides brief their walking groups a few metres back from the wall.

Come before 09:00 instead, when the light is soft and gold on the Alhambra walls and you can lean on the rail. Or come after 22:00 in summer, when the palace is floodlit and the crowd has thinned.

The garden 30 seconds from the rail

Mezquita Mayor de Granada is 30 seconds from the parapet, and its walled garden and stone-railed terrace are free to enter, with donations accepted. The view across the Darro gorge to the Alhambra is the same one, and here you get a bench and silence. Palms, roses and a low fountain fill the garden, and the square brick minaret rises over the Albaicín behind it.

The garden opens 11:00 to 14:00, then again from mid-afternoon prayer until sunset. It shuts at sunset, the hour the parapet fills.

This is a working mosque. Keep your voice down, dress modestly and ask before you photograph anyone.

Two miradors when San Nicolás is full

Mirador de San Miguel Alto, on a bare 850-metre hilltop above the Albaicín, is the highest viewpoint in the city. A small whitewashed hermitage stands alone up there and people sit along the low wall with their legs over the edge, looking at a full circle of the Alhambra, the Generalife, Sacromonte, the Sierra Nevada and the Vega plain. Entry is free, the space absorbs however many people turn up, and at sunset it is usually quieter than San Nicolás.

The climb takes more than 30 minutes of continuous uphill walking. There is no shade, no toilet and nothing for sale on the hilltop, and the descent in the dark is steep and poorly lit.

Mirador de San Cristóbal, on the Carretera de Murcia, involves no climb at all. Buses N9 and C31 serve it, and a car or a coach can reach the terrace. Pick it if the Albaicín's stairs are beyond you. The crenellated 11th-century Zirí wall marches down the hillside in the foreground, the Alhambra sits obliquely to it, and the Cathedral domes and the city plain spread out beyond. Entry is free and it is far quieter than San Nicolás.

Breakfast and lunch on the square

Bar Kiki, Vinos y Otras Cosas (Plaza de San Nicolás 9) holds the edge of the square, with pavement tables under a canvas awning, wine bottles and chalked tapas boards inside, and the Alhambra visible past the parapet from the outside seats. Tapas and wine run €15 to €30 a head. Walk in; the bar takes no bookings and its own website says just come by. It is wheelchair accessible and takes cards and contactless. It closes on Wednesdays and shuts mid-afternoon, so take it as a lunch stop.

Café 4 Gatos (Placeta Cruz Verde) opens 08:30 to 16:00 daily, five minutes' walk downhill from the viewpoint. Thick artisan toast comes under crushed tomato, or under roasted aubergine and goat's cheese. The juice is squeezed orange, the baking is done in house, and vegetarian and vegan options are on the board. Toast and coffee cost €4 to €9. Four pavement tables and a small room, no booking: it works for two to four people and it is hopeless for a group. A sliver of the Alhambra shows between the rooftops.

Dinner with the palace floodlit

El Huerto de Juan Ranas (Callejón de la Atarazana Vieja 6) steps down a hillside garden a few doors below the viewpoint, geranium pots and climbing vines on its whitewashed walls, the front row of tables set right at the parapet with the floodlit Alhambra filling the frame. It opens daily into the night and runs €35 to €60 a head. Book well ahead and ask for a front-row table by name, or you pay view prices for a back seat. Arrive 30 minutes before sunset and you get both the sunset and the illumination.

The pricing is view-led and opinion on the cooking is split. You are paying for the seat.

Carmen Mirador de Aixa (Carril de San Agustín) is a traditional Albaicín carmen with whitewashed garden walls, clipped cypress and a stepped terrace of linen-laid tables facing the Alhambra, the Sierra Nevada ridge off to the left. Dinner is €35 to €55 a head. It opens seven days including Monday, when most of the Albaicín's carmen restaurants are shut. Reservations are essential for a table on the terrace rail. The terrace is heated, which keeps it usable for a winter view dinner.

Monuments on the climb up from the Darro

El Bañuelo (Carrera del Darro 31) sits sunk below the street on the river walk up to the Albaicín, and it is older than the Alhambra itself. Barrel-vaulted brick chambers are pierced by star- and octagon-shaped skylights that throw their shapes onto the floor, and reused Roman and Visigothic capitals sit on the stubby marble columns. Entry is €5 Monday to Saturday and free every Sunday of the year. Hours are currently 10:00 to 17:00, with split hours from May. The rooms are low and the circulation is tight.

Casa del Chapiz (Cuesta del Chapiz) joins two Morisco houses, and it sits on the walking route from Paseo de los Tristes up to San Nicolás, so it costs you no detour. A courtyard pool reflects a columned gallery, and terraced gardens of box hedge, orange trees and cypress climb the slope with the Alhambra towers rising straight ahead. Entry is €2, under-12s go free and Sundays are free. Winter hours are 10:00 to 16:45, split into morning and evening in summer. The house is a working CSIC institute and visits are controlled. Free weekly guided tours run in Spanish at 11:00 and in English at 11:30, and both need advance registration.

Casa de Zafra (Calle Portería de la Concepción) is a 14th-century Nasrid house with a long rectangular pool down the middle of the courtyard, slender columns under a brick arcade, a wooden upper gallery and fragments of painted plasterwork. It doubles as the municipal interpretation centre for the Albaicín, and it is the fastest way to understand what you look down on from the mirador. The stated visit is 30 minutes. Tickets are sold at the door only, €3 general and €1 reduced, free on Sundays. It closes on Mondays, opens Tuesday to Friday and on Sunday mornings, and runs until 17:00 on Saturdays.

Palacio de Dar al-Horra (Callejón de las Monjas) is a 15th-century Nasrid palace five minutes from the square, reached through the park off the main San Nicolás street. The courtyard is an empty rectangle under a brick arcade, with carved stucco and twin-arched mirador windows in the north gallery, and the tower looks over tiled Albaicín rooftops. Entry is €8 on its own, or inside the €10.92 Monumentos Andalusíes combined ticket, and Sundays are free up to capacity. Hours are 10:00 to 17:00 daily, with longer split hours from May. The rooms are small and the stairs narrow, and capacity is limited.

Carmen del Aljibe del Rey (Placeta del Cristo de las Azucenas), the Centro de Interpretación del Agua, holds the largest surviving cistern of Muslim Granada. The 11th-century brick tank runs in vaulted parallel naves on squat pillars over still green water, and a terraced walled garden of cypresses sits above it. It explains better than anything else on the hill why the Albaicín grew where it did. The free guided visit for individuals is Monday to Friday at 12:00 and needs no booking, though you have to plan around that single daily slot. It closes on public holidays and for the whole of August.

Sacromonte caves

Museo Cuevas del Sacromonte (Barranco de los Negros) is 10 recreated cave dwellings cut into a dry hillside, with prickly pear and agave on the slope. The whitewashed cave interiors are fitted with looms, copper pots and a basket-weaver's bench, and the terrace looks across to the Alhambra. Entry is €5, or €3 a person for groups of more than 10. It opens daily, 10:00 to 18:00 from 15 October and 10:00 to 20:00 in the warm half of the year. The gravel paths between caves are steep and uneven, slow going for anyone with limited mobility.

Going inside the Alhambra

La Alhambra and Generalife is what you have been looking at from the parapet, and the free viewpoint is no substitute for it. The walls and towers strung along the ridge enclose Nasrid palace courtyards with reflecting pools and carved stucco, and the Generalife's water-stair gardens climb above them.

The general daytime ticket is €22.27. Gardens only, or the night visit to the Nasrid Palaces, is €12.73, and the Dobla de Oro combined ticket is €27.30. Entry to the Nasrid Palaces is a strict timed slot with daily capacity limits, and you book it weeks ahead. Online sales close at 23:59 the day before, and tickets must be collected at least an hour before the palace slot. Hours are 08:30 to 18:00 from 15 October to 31 March, and 08:30 to 20:00 from 1 April.

Tickets and guided walks

Nothing on the esplanade is ticketed, at any hour. Guided walks that take in the Albaicín and Sacromonte come up to the viewpoint seven days a week, and they are booking up steadily. Reserve a few days out in high season.

Is it worth the climb

Yes, at the right hour. It suits anyone who can manage the Albaicín's stairs and will come before 09:00 or late at night; the sunset version means standing in a crowd for an hour.

Before you go

Bar Kiki closes on Wednesdays, Casa de Zafra closes on Mondays, and the Aljibe del Rey closes for the whole of August. Book the Alhambra's timed slot weeks ahead, and reserve the terrace tables at El Huerto de Juan Ranas and Carmen Mirador de Aixa before you arrive.

See the Granada guide and the Granada hotel search.