Royal Chapel of Granada — Attraction in Granada

The Royal Chapel of Granada, is small but impressive! This is the final resting place of Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand who helped shape and modernize Spain. Seeing their tombs up close was surreal. They're carved from perfect white marble and surrounded by beautifully detailed Gothic architecture.

The crypt below felt a little haunting descending down the steps. You can see the simple coffins with initials marking the actual burial spots including the children. You can really feel the weight of history in that room.

There’s also a small museum section with beautiful royal artifacts. Royal crowns, scepters, robes, and religious relics.

I highly recommend getting the audio guide it’s included in the price and really helped me understand what I was seeing. Without it, you’d miss a lot of the symbolism and history behind the art and layout.

No photography allowed inside. I spent about 30 minutes there. It’s not a huge space, but it leaves a big impression. Its great to pair the visit with the nearby Granada Cathedral, which is more architecturally grand.

The Royal Chapel of Granada feels like being in a time capsule. Standing in front of the tombs of some of Spain’s most influential monarchs was deeply moving. If you’re in the city,...

The Royal Chapel is the last resting place of Spain’s Reyes Católicos (Catholic Monarchs), Isabel I de Castilla (1451–1504) and Fernando II de Aragón (1452–1516), who commissioned the elaborate Isabelline-Gothic-style mausoleum that was to house them. It wasn't completed until 1517, hence their interment in the Alhambra’s Convento de San Francisco until 1521. Their monumental marble tombs (and those of their heirs) lie in the chancel behind a gilded wrought-iron screen, created by Bartolomé de Jaén in 1520. However, the tombs are just for show as the monarchs actually lie in simple lead coffins in the crypt beneath the chancel. Also there are the coffins of Isabel and Fernando’s unfortunate daughter, Juana the Mad, her husband, Philip of Flanders, and Miguel, Prince of Asturias, who died as a boy.

The sacristy contains a small but impressive museum, with Fernando’s sword and Isabel’s sceptre, silver crown and personal art collection, which is mainly Flemish but also includes Botticelli’s Prayer in the Garden of Olives. Felipe de Vigarni’s two early-16th-century statues of the Catholic Monarchs at prayer...

is an Isabelline style building, constructed between 1505 and 1517, and originally integrated in the complex of the neighbouring Granada Cathedral. It is the burial place of the Spanish monarchs, Queen Isabella I and King Ferdinand, the Catholic Monarchs. Apart from these historical links, this building also contains a gallery of artworks and other items associated with Queen Isabella. The Nasrid dynasty of Granada was the last Moorish dominion of Al-Andalus to fall in the Reconquista (Reconquest). This occurred in 1492 during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs, with the conquest of the city being an important stage of their combined reign. On September 13, 1504, they declared that they wanted their remains to be taken to Granada, and to this effect a royal charter was issued at Medina del Campo, Castile-León, for the Royal Chapel...