Granada
The Alhambra is Granada’s – and Europe’s – love letter to Moorish culture. Set against the brooding Sierra Nevada peaks, this fortified palace started…
Granada
The Alhambra is Granada’s – and Europe’s – love letter to Moorish culture. Set against the brooding Sierra Nevada peaks, this fortified palace started…
Catedral & Barrio de Santa Cruz
A magnificent marriage of Christian and Mudéjar architecture, Seville’s royal palace complex is a breathtaking spectacle. The site, which was originally…
Córdoba
It’s impossible to overemphasise the beauty of Córdoba’s great mosque, with its remarkably serene (despite tourist crowds) and spacious interior. One of…
Catedral & Barrio de Santa Cruz
Seville’s showpiece church is awe-inspiring in its scale and majesty. The world’s largest Gothic cathedral, it was built between 1434 and 1517 over the…
Málaga
This unmissable museum in the city of Picasso’s birth provides a solid overview of the great master and his work, although, surprisingly, it only came to…
Nerja
It’s hard to imagine the surreal world that lies beneath the mountain foothills 4km east of Nerja, and it’s even harder to believe that these vast caverns…
Tarifa
One of Andalucía's most fabulous beaches, Punta Paloma, 10km northwest of Tarifa, is famous for its huge blond sand dune. At its far western end, you can…
El Centro & El Arenal
Housed in a grand Mannerist palace, the former Convento de la Merced, the Museo de Bellas Artes is one of Spain's premier art museums. Its collection of…
Parque de María Luisa & South of Centre
A glorious oasis of green, the 34-hectare Parque de María Luisa is the perfect place to escape the noise and heat of the city, with duck ponds, landscaped…
Granada
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 …
La Macarena & Alameda de Hércules
The Metropol Parasol, known locally as Las Setas (The Mushrooms), is one of Seville's iconic modern landmarks. Built in 2011 to a design by German…
Andalucía
Jaén's massive cathedral still dwarfs the rest of the city, especially when seen from the hilltop eyrie of Cerro de Santa Catalina. Its construction…
Málaga
Málaga’s elaborate cathedral was started in the 16th century on the site of the former mosque. Of the mosque, only the Patio de los Naranjos survives, a…
Andalucía
This famous chapel, built between 1536 and 1559, is the flagship of Úbeda Renaissance architecture. Commissioned by Francisco de los Cobos y Molina as his…
Málaga
No time to visit Granada’s Alhambra? Then Málaga’s Alcazaba can provide a taster. The entrance is beside the Roman theatre, from where a meandering path…
Granada
Built between 1737 and 1759, this spectacular basilica unveils a blinding display of opulent baroque decor. Barely an inch of its interior lacks…
Hospital de los Venerables Sacerdotes
Catedral & Barrio de Santa Cruz
This gem of a museum, housed in a former hospice for priests, is one of Seville’s most rewarding. The artistic highlight is the Focus-Abengoa Foundation’s…
Andalucía
Dating to the 9th and 10th centuries, this rare jewel of a mezquita (mosque) perches a five-minute walk above Almonaster's main square. The almost…
Andalucía
On the edge of the Barrio de La Villa, this church represents a high point in Andalucian baroque chiefly thanks to its wonderful Sagrario (Sacristy),…
Andalucía
Beneath Aracena's castle hill is a web of caves and tunnels carved from the karstic topography. An extraordinary 1.2km, 50-minute loop takes you through…
Parque de María Luisa & South of Centre
This bombastic plaza, designed by architect Aníbal González in the Parque de María Luisa, was the most extravagant of the building projects completed for…
Sevilla Province
Écija's history museum, housed in the 18th-century Palacio de Benamejí, is an authentic gem. It has rooms dedicated to the area's prehistory and…
Parque Natural de Cabo de Gata-Níjar
Costa de Almería
Boasting glorious beaches, vertiginous cliffs and a semi-desert hinterland, this 340-sq-km park occupies Andalucía’s southeastern corner. It’s a wild…
Almería
A looming fortification with great curtain-like walls rising from the cliffs, Almerìa's Alcazaba was founded in the mid-10th century and went on to become…
Jerez de la Frontera
An intriguing, evocative bodega, not only for its extra-aged sherries (at least 20, mostly 30 years old) but also because it houses the Colección Joaquín…
Córdoba
A stunning Renaissance palace with 12 beautiful, plant-filled patios, the Viana Palace is a particular delight to visit in spring. Occupied by the…
Parque Natural de Cabo de Gata-Níjar
Set between dramatic headlands 3km northeast of Las Negras, this sandy hideaway is the holy grail of the park's numerous beaches. The 250m-long playa,…
Parque Natural de Cabo de Gata-Níjar
The most celebrated of the playas off the San José beach road, Playa de Mónsul is a fabulous sandy wedge hemmed in by sharply eroded lava rocks and a…
Tarifa
Sprawling between 7km and 10km northwest of Tarifa, to the great white dune at Punta Paloma, Valdevaqueros is one of Tarifa's most popular kitesurfing…
Antequera
Antequera's two earth-covered burial mounds – the Dolmen de Menga and the Dolmen de Viera – were built out of megalithic stones by Bronze Age people…
Andalucía
High above the city, atop cliff-girt Cerro de Santa Catalina, this fortress's near-impregnable position is what made Jaén important during the Muslim and…
Almería
Almería’s formidable, six-towered cathedral, begun in 1525, was conceived both as a place of worship and a refuge for the population from frequent pirate…
Sevilla Province
The ruins of ancient Itálica, the first Roman city founded on the Iberian Peninsula, are extensive and, in parts, quite spectacular. Broad paved streets…
Andalucía
These rare and spectacular caves, 2km east of Sorbas, are part of a vast network of underground galleries and tunnels. Guided visits lead through the…
Andalucía
In a stunningly picturesque and panoramic perch on a rocky pinnacle towering over pretty La Iruela village, this ancient fortification is well worth the…
Sevilla Province
This ancient Roman necropolis is one of the most important of its kind in Andalucía. The site, which is slightly let down by a lack of signage, contains…
Andalucía
In 2019 the world's second-largest geode opened to the public in northeastern Almería's Sierra del Aguilón. Measuring an astounding 8m long by 2m tall,…
Colegiata de Santa María de la Asunción
Sevilla Province
Lording it over the town, this formidable Renaissance structure – two churches above a crypt – sits on the site of the town's medieval parish church. It…
Córdoba
Eight kilometres west of Córdoba stands what's left of Medina Azahara, the sumptuous palace-city built by Caliph Abd ar-Rahman III in the 10th century…
Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos
Córdoba
Built under Castilian rule in the 13th and 14th centuries on the remains of a Moorish predecessor, this fort-cum-palace was where the Catholic Monarchs,…