Private guided tour. The Alhambra and Generalife palace gardens

Stop at: Plaza de los Aljibes y La Alcazaba

The name of this square comes from the cisterns built by the Count of Tendilla in 1494 in the ravine that separates the Alcazaba and the palaces. These cisterns, 34 metres long, 6 metres wide and 8 metres high, later became the current square when they were buried along with the surrounding streets and squares. The square forms an extensive esplanade between the towers and defences of the Alhambra on one side, and on the other by the Wine Gate and the Moorish Palaces and the Palace of Charles V, which offers splendid views of the city, the Albaicín and Sacromonte. 

In 1955, excavations were carried out which uncovered the medieval square.

Stop at: En la Alhambra: Palacio Carlos V

The origin of the Palace of Charles V is due to the need for a place that would meet all the comforts of the time for the emperor and his family, as the Alcazar, which was his summer residence, did not meet their needs.

The emperor ordered the construction of the palace next to the Alhambra so that he could enjoy its wonders. The architect in charge of the work was Pedro Machuca, a Renaissance lover of proven experience. The construction of the palace began in 1527 and was fully financed in 1957. The construction went through several stages, lack of funds, uprisings that stopped the works, and so on. The roofs even collapsed due to neglect.

The palace is square, with a main façade measuring 63 metres wide by 17 metres high. The circular courtyard in the centre stands out, unique in its style and the most outstanding work of the Renaissance in Spain. Only the south and west façades are decorated in their entirety. The north and east façades are only partially decorated, due to the fact that the building is linked to the Alcazar of the Alhambra.

Stop at: Puerta del Vino

In a way, this gate has a similar function to the one it had in the Nasrid period. It is the main access gate to the Medina of the Alhambra, which encloses, within the common walled enclosure of the fortress, the residential and artisan sector at the service of the court.

As it is an inner gate, it is directly accessible, unlike the outer gates, which must have been more protected and were built around a bend in the wall. However, the interior of the gate still retains the necessary space and the benches for the guard who controlled the passage.

Structurally, it is one of the oldest buildings in the Nasrid Alhambra, and its construction is attributed to the time of Sultan Muhammad III (1302-1309), although the decoration of its two façades corresponds to different periods.

Specifically, the west façade, carved in sandstone, must date from the late 13th or early 14th century, although the tombstone above the lintel of the arch mentions Sultan Muhammad V who ruled in the second half of the 14th century. This western façade was the outer façade, and the traditional symbolic keystone appears above the keystone of the arch.

The interior façade, the east façade, still following a similar pattern, was decorated during the second term of Sultan Muhammad V, specifically after 1367, the date of the military campaigns of Jaén, Baeza and Úbeda. Its decoration includes the delicate spandrels of the arch, made of cuerda seca tiles, the plasterwork composition framing the window on the upper floor and the remains of polychrome painting on the right-hand side of the arch.

Stop at: Jardines y Palacio del Generalife

The Almunia del Generalife was an ideal estate for farming and relaxation, with a nucleus of residential buildings and a vast expanse of land for cultivation and grazing, compartmentalised into paratas or terraces by means of four large orchards, taking advantage of its orographic outlines.

These huertas are delimited by thick retaining walls, some of which can still be seen today. Their Castilian names, preserved and handed down from ancient times, are: 'Colorada', 'Grande', 'Fuente Peña' and 'Mercería', whose current boundaries must coincide approximately with those of medieval times. A meadow surrounds the estate, where horses and farm animals are bred and even served as a hunting ground for the use of the sultan.

Stop at: Palacios Nazaríes: Palacio del Mexuar

It is difficult to know how the Mexuar was originally built, as the many restorations and reconstructions that have been carried out up to the present day prevent us from knowing what its rooms were like, those that are not in ruins. According to the quotations of the poet Ibn Zamrak, we could say that it belonged to the primitive Nasrid citadels. Both the alterations carried out after the Christian occupation and the explosion in 1590 of a powder magazine that caused great destruction have produced great modifications in the distribution and communication, so it is difficult to know how it was originally. In reality, all that remains of the group of rooms, located next to the tower of Mohammed I, is the eastern nave, which is what we now call the "Mexuar", which has not been spared from Christian reconstructions, and the gallery and Tower of Machuca, so called because it was the home of the architects Pedro and Luis Machuca during the construction of the Palace of Charles V.