The Alhambra Palace, Granada, Spain (Alhambra Palace (Granada))

Member Name: becky92

Product:	Alhambra Palace (Granada)
Date:	12/10/08 (70 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fabulous palace with gorgeous gardens. Fascinating history

Disadvantages: Have to book far in advance. Slightly overrated.

The Alhambra Palace is a beautiful palace in Granada, Spain. It has much fascinating History, but I won't say much about it - there are many brilliant websites if you want to find out more- I will just give a brief overview of its history, and then move on to my own opinions and experiences.

The Alhambra palace is a Moorish palace which was completed in the 14th century. The building existed in the 9th century, but was modified in the 13th century by Muhammad III to be his personal residence. It is situated on a hill on the south eastern border of Granada. It looks over the whole city of Granada.

I visited the Alhambra Palace in Granada in the summer. We stayed in Granada for a couple of days, and having heard so much about the Alhambra Palace, we had booked to go about 3 months in advance. This brings me on to a slight disadvantage of it; If you want to go at a popular time, i.e. summer, you have to book it quite a bit in advance, as they only sell so many tickets, and they sell out fairly rapidly.

The Palace is beautiful, and the gardens even more so, however, I can't help but feel that it is slightly overrated. I guess it depends what kind of person you are, but I felt that towards the end I was getting a little bored of it. Also, if you go in summer, it is very hot and there are an awful lot of people there.

Another slight disadvantage, although it depends how organised you are, is that they are very picky about what time you can go into the palace. There are three time slots available, the morning, afternoon, and the evening session. Each session has an allotted time, and you have to enter at that time- this applies for both the palace and the gardens. Although admittedly this was our own bad planning, we got there about an hour before our time slot, thinking that we would be able to visit the gardens, before going into the palace itself. We were not allowed to do this, so we ended up hanging around for an hour in the midday heat. Not great fun. However, like I said, if you are organised and plan it well, you should have no problems with this.

It's quite a long walk (but very pretty) from the centre of Granada to the palace, and uphill. (It's all good exercise!) However, if this is not for you, there is a bus service that runs from the centre up to the palace which comes frequently and is very efficient.

If you're going to Granada, the Alhambra palace is definitely worth seeing, and I am very glad I went, but I wouldn't necessary go to Granada purely to see the Palace.

Summary: A beautiful palace and gardens with spectacular views over Granada.