The watchtower
The highest point in the Alhambra, with all Granada and the mountains beyond.
The Alcazaba is a military fort, the palaces are for governing and living, the Generalife is gardens. The Alcazaba is the oldest and architecturally the plainest; its value is the view, and in understanding that the Alhambra was a fortified city, not just a palace.
The watchtower stair is narrow and steep and needs some fitness, and the ground inside is uneven old stone. Anyone with difficulty walking can stay at ground level and enjoy the walls without climbing the tower.
Before your Nasrid Palaces slot if that is in the afternoon, or straight after if it is in the morning. The view is finest early in the morning or before sunset, when the light on the city is warm.
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The Alcazaba is the military part of the Alhambra and its oldest section. Built chiefly in the thirteenth century on older foundations, it was the fortress guarding the hill, garrisoned by soldiers before the palaces went up beside it. Today little remains inside but the foundations of the houses and narrow streets where the soldiers and their families lived, open to walk among. The towers survive, though, above all the watchtower, which you climb by a narrow stair for the finest view in Granada: the palaces on one side, the old town and the Albaicín on another, and the Sierra Nevada on the horizon. Entry is included in the Alhambra ticket and needs no timed slot.
The highest point in the Alhambra, with all Granada and the mountains beyond.
Foundations of the small houses and streets where soldiers and their families lived inside the fort.
Red clay walls with a run of towers — what gave the Alhambra its name.
Alhambra complex, 18009 Granada