Malaga

A double wall zigzags up the hill that looks down on the port. One walled path carries on to the Gibralfaro castle above, fifteen minutes of climb away. Roman columns pulled from the ruins below stand reused all along the walls.

The tiers turned up in 1951 while a flower bed at the culture centre was dug. The building over them came down in the 1990s, and stage and seating now lie open under the Alcazaba wall. Shows run in summer, so people still sit on two-thousand-year-old stone.

The south tower was never finished, and the city's name for it is the one-armed woman. Stories differ on where the money went; one rests on a record of funds sent to the American war of independence. A rooftop route over the vaults shows the tower's cut brick.

The house where Picasso was born stands five minutes away and belongs to a different foundation. The museum's holdings came mainly from the family, so there are many studies and ceramics rather than the famous large canvases.

A boardwalk a metre wide clings to the gorge wall, a hundred metres up. The early access path for a power scheme fell apart and people died on it. New planking reopened it in 2015, walked one way only. An hour by car, and without a ticket the trip is wasted.

Until 1831 Protestants in this city were buried upright in the beach sand at night. A British consul obtained ground and walled a cemetery, and that ended the practice. The oldest graves, faced with sea shells, are still there under the trees.

Once the freight quay became a walkway, you can walk from the centre to the water without a break. The coloured glass cube on the water is the door to a French museum's outpost. In front of it yachts and cruise ships lie side by side.

A nineteenth-century couple planted tropical trees brought in by ship, and the city keeps the garden now. Bamboo groves and wisteria frames follow one another, so you stay in shade all the way round even in summer.

Large murals have gone into the worn blocks between the port and the old town since 2013. Many take a whole side of a building, so you have to look up from the main street rather than the lanes to see one whole.

The great horseshoe arch at the market door is the last piece of the Islamic shipyard gate. Water once came up to it and boats passed in and out; the sea has since drawn a long way off. A stained-glass window inside carries the old face of the city.

A 14th-century Nasrid castle crowning the hill over the Alcazaba, linked to it by walls. Walking its rampart path puts the port, bullring and city at your feet. One ticket covers both; the slope is punishing, so plenty ride up by bus and come down on foot.

A 16th-century mansion, the Palacio de Villalon, filled with 19th-century Spanish painting. Its core is Andalusian genre scenes of bullfighters, gypsies and village fairs. Same collecting family as Madrid's Thyssen, wholly different period and subject.

The city beach right east of the port, walkable from the cathedral. The sand is grey, and beach restaurants run behind the rows of parasols. The beach shares its name with the district, whose La Malagueta bullring stands a few blocks back.

The corner house on Plaza de la Merced where Picasso was born in 1881. Family furniture, his christening gown and paintings by his artist father remain. The bench seat beside a bronze Picasso in the square is never empty of people posing.

A nature park on a high plateau where weather has carved limestone into rocks like stacked plates. Two colour-marked trails, short and long, leave from the visitor centre. The rock lanes form a maze, and stepping off the markers gets you lost fast.

A vast limestone cave found in 1959 by five local boys chasing bats, at Nerja, a coastal town east of Malaga. A giant column that reaches the roof stands in its middle. After the cave, carry on into Nerja to the seafront lookout called the Balcony of Europe.

The Palacio de la Aduana, the old customs house by the port, opened in 2016 with art and archaeology together. Upstairs are Phoenician, Roman and Islamic finds; below, 19th-century Malaga painters. Its arcaded courtyard stays cool even at summer noon.