Royal Chapel of Granada

Royal Chapel of Granada tickets: which one to buy

The chapel has its own cheap ticket, separate from the cathedral it adjoins, and the two are usually bought together either at the desks or as part of a guided tour of both. Audio guides are available. The chapel is small and admits a limited number at a time, so a coach group can mean a wait of twenty minutes; going early avoids it. Guided tours combining chapel, cathedral and the surrounding streets cost several times the entry and are worth it for the historical thread, since this building is where the Reconquista is buried and the cathedral next door is what came after.

Combined tickets with the Alhambra do not exist, and Alhambra entry must be booked separately weeks ahead. Photography is completely forbidden inside the chapel and the rule is strictly enforced, which keeps the room calm. Tickets are sold at the chapel door and at the cathedral desk, and the two buildings keep slightly different hours, so buy the pair at whichever opens first.

Visiting Royal Chapel of Granada: what to see

Isabella and Ferdinand took Granada in 1492 and in 1504 declared that they wished to be buried in the city they had won; the chapel was built between 1505 and 1517 in the late Gothic style now called Isabelline. Their marble effigies lie on a raised tomb by Domenico Fancelli, with their daughter Joanna and her husband Philip beside them on a second, taller monument. The actual coffins are in the crypt below, plain lead boxes visible through a grille, a deliberate contrast with the marble above. The retable behind the altar shows the surrender of Granada and the forced baptisms that followed, carved within living memory of the events.

In the sacristy are Isabella's crown and sceptre, Ferdinand's sword, and her personal collection of Flemish paintings, including works by Memling, Bouts and van der Weyden, the finest such collection in Spain outside the Prado. The chapel also keeps the banners carried at the surrender of the city and a set of choir books almost a metre tall. Its architect, Enrique Egas, designed it as a single tall Gothic room so that nothing would distract from the tombs, and the effect still works: visitors go quiet the moment they come through the grille.

Royal Chapel of Granada opening hours and the best time to go

Open daily from mid-morning, with a long break in the early afternoon in the older schedule and a reopening until early evening; Sunday mornings are for services. The chapel stays cool in summer, which matters in a city that regularly passes 38 degrees. Granada's tourist peak is spring and autumn, when Alhambra tickets vanish and the centre is full; winter is quiet and the Sierra Nevada is white behind the rooftops. Dress code is applied at the door. No photography at all, and bags are checked.

Allow forty-five minutes, an hour if the paintings hold you. The entrance is from a narrow lane off the Gran Via rather than from the cathedral, which confuses many visitors; look for the Lonja, the small Gothic exchange building, and the door is beside it. Winter mornings are the best, with low sun through the south windows and almost nobody in the crypt. The lane outside fills with souvenir stalls by mid-morning, which makes the entrance harder to spot than it should be.