The Alhambra looms large on the Southern Spain tourist route and our mail goal for Thursday. Knowing that crowds can get large we started early to arrive at the gates a little after they opened. A circulator bus is the easiest way to the top (besides a 15 minute walk up hill) so we waited in line at the cathedral stop and managed to squeeze on for the winding ride up the hill. There’s a good reason these busese are so small – the roads driving up are narrow and curvy! At the top of the hill everyone got out, and we made our way to the Generalife gardens first.

The gardens were magnificent with great views, lots of flowers, and water features in abundance. It was hard to get Eric to leave in time for our timed tickets for the Alhambra Palace itself, which was amazing.

We were quite glad they crowd control, as though there are some chokepoints, it would be much less enjoyable with even more people. There are details everywhere you look, from the floor to the ceiling, and it can be quite overwhelming.

Many, many more photos on our gallery page.

Unsurprisingly, there is interesting people watching at Alhambra too. Next up was the Fortress which had great views over city.

At this point in the day the sun was getting strong so we faded around 2p. We exited through the side of the site and walked downhill, stopping briefly for a small waterfall and continuing the downhill trek back into the city center.

We were getting a little peckish, so we continued through town to Taberna La Tana for a tapas lunch after stopping briefly at a gelato place for Eric.  After lunch we crashed at the hotel for a much needed nap and respite from the sun.