After a short wait at the gathering spot, someone came and got us, and we were escorted to the entry of the first of the Nasrid palaces, the Mexuar Palace. The Mexuar Palace is believed to have housed the royal court of justice for the Nasrids. It was substantially altered by the Christian monarchs to hold a chapel. The palace's oratory suffered significant damage from a gunpowder explosion in 1590 and was not fully restored until 1917.



The Mexuar courtyard is surrounded on one side by a room called the Golden Chamber and on the other by what is called the façade to the next palace, the Comares Palace.





The Comares Palace surrounds a large courtyard with a long, rectangular reflective pool, called the Courtyard of the Myrtles.



At one end of the courtyard is a room called the Hall of the Ambassadors, used as the throne room, and a sort of antechamber called the Hall of the Boat. As in the rest of the palaces, the decorations are in the mudejar style rather than a pure Arabic style, partly because of the isolation of Al-Andalus from the rest of the Muslim world since the declaration of the Caliphate and partly because of interactions with Europeans representing different architectural influences. The decorations are characterized by painted tiles and densely detailed inscriptions of calligraphy (usually Koranic verses), foliage-inspired patterns (known as arabesques) or geometric patterns. An Islamic principle known as aniconism, practiced to greater and lesser extents by different Muslims, forbids the depiction of humans or other sentient creatures.




A small door on the side of the courtyard led to the next palace, the Palace of the Lions. The Palace of the Lions is named after the fountain at the center of its courtyard, which is surrounded by twelve stylized lions which spew water from their mouths. We'd love to show you a picture of it, but it was under restoration during our visit and hidden from view. But there was plenty to see anyway. The courtyard is surrounded by columns, with small projecting pavilions at the east and west ends.



Ceilings and archways in the palace itself show examples of a feature known as mocarábes. It is said that Mohammed received inspiration for the Koran in a cave in which he was hiding from pursuing enemies. Mocarábes are combinations of a great number of small, simply-shaped stucco elements to produce a resemblance to the ceiling of such a cave, including stalactites.



From the Palace of the Lions we passed through a courtyard called the Courtyard of Linderaja and an arcade with a nice view of the Albaicín neighborhood across the ravine to the north, and found ourselves exited from the palaces.


We continued eastward an found another structure, called the Tower of the Ladies, which seems to be a sheltered viewpoint with a large pool in front of it.


From here we walked along the outer wall a little more and eventually backtracked through the gardens, starting on a search for lunch. This search proved to be unsuccessful – there is surprisingly little real food (as opposed to snack food) to be had in the Alhambra complex. We found a cafeteria, but they were closing when we got there, so we decided to find food in town on our way out. We'd last eaten in Seville several hours earlier, so our stomachs were growling. Nevertheless, we stopped for a quick look at the Palace of Charles V, the square 16th Century stone behemoth south of the Nasrid palaces which turned out to have a big circular courtyard. And a quick look was all that was really necessary – while impressive, the palace looked pretty much the same from all angles, though we did go upstairs to check out that vantage point.



We discovered a museum housed in the palace, with admission included in the Alhambra ticket price, so we quickly made our way through it, with nothing really grabbing our attention. This may have been more a reflection of our state of starvation than the museum itself, but I don't really remember much about it so I couldn't say for sure.

We exited the grounds through the Justice Gate, just south of the Charles V Palace, and found a bus stop across from the gate. We had some time, so we took pictures of the Charles V Fountain (1543) next to the gate while we were waiting.

We got off the bus in the Plaza Isabel la Católica and walked uphill in search of a restaurant, successfully finding one on the left side of the street. We were the only customers, the hour being on the weird side, but we were grateful to finally be able to feed ourselves.

After lunch we didn't have too much time before the departure of our train back to Seville, so we just got on a bus and headed back to the station.

Our return to Seville took a little less time than our trip out, but still exceeded three hours.

We figured out how to get a bus back to somewhere near our hotel from the station and went looking for dinner, which turned out to be a small, so-so meal consisting of greasy tapas. Worn out, we returned to the hotel and collapsed.