Most visitors to the Alhambra leave without noticing the towers that predated it. The Torres Bermejas, or Vermillion Towers, rise from the south face of the Alhambra hill above the Realejo, their reddish sandstone catching the afternoon light in a way the main palace complex, built of lighter stone, simply does not.
When to Visit
Best season
Year-round; afternoon light in spring and autumn is best for the reddish stone
Quietest hours
Any time — the exterior is always uncrowded
Visit duration
15 to 30 minutes
Why the towers are red, and how old they are
The colour comes from the iron content in the local stone, the same material the city's earliest Muslim rulers used when they first fortified this hill in the 11th century, two centuries before construction began on the Alhambra itself.
The three main towers formed part of the outer defensive curtain wall linking the Alhambra complex to the lower city. They rise roughly 15 metres, a square-plan construction with a solidity that speaks to military purpose rather than palatial display.
Shoot from the Cuesta Rodrigo del Campo in late afternoon
The iron-red sandstone catches the light between 16:00 and 18:00 in a way that photographs can't quite manage in flat midday sun. Position yourself on the Cuesta Rodrigo del Campo looking uphill: the towers frame against the sky without the roofline interference you get from lower down in the Realejo.
Washington Irving and the towers' near-destruction
Washington Irving passed the towers on his way up to the Alhambra in 1829 and noted them in Tales of the Alhambra (1832), which is more than most contemporary guidebooks manage. Irving arrived just seventeen years after these fortifications nearly shared the fate of the Alhambra's own towers, mined by the withdrawing French garrison in 1812, an episode covered in the French plot to blow up the Alhambra.
At the time the towers were still connected to the broader wall system; the intervening centuries and development have isolated them somewhat, which makes them feel more like an isolated ruin than the working fortification they once were.
