Málaga

Málaga is Picasso's home town, and it has grown into a city of museums, from the Museo Picasso Málaga to the coloured glass cube of the Centre Pompidou Málaga on the harbour. Still, the street is the first draw: Calle Larios cuts through the centre in polished marble, and its terraces never empty. La Malagueta Beach runs straight from the edge of the centre, with shacks where sardines cook on skewers stuck in the sand. Above the rooftops, the Moorish palace-fortress of the Alcazaba climbs to Gibralfaro Castle and its view over the bay. A Roman theatre lies at the foot of those walls, uncovered by chance in 1951. The cathedral never received its second tower, which earned it the nickname of the one-armed lady. Inland, the Caminito del Rey hangs a walkway on the wall of a narrow gorge, a hundred metres above the river.