Malaga

The Roman theatre, not an amphitheatre

This matters because older accounts use the wrong word throughout, and the two things are different buildings for different purposes. An amphitheatre is an oval arena for games; a theatre is a semicircular auditorium for plays. Malaga has a theatre, from the reign of Augustus, and it was rediscovered in 1951 during construction work on a cultural centre that had been built over it.

It sits directly below the Alcazaba walls, is free to enter, and its stone was quarried by the Muslim builders of the fortress above — reused columns and capitals from the theatre are visible in the Alcazaba, which is the best short lesson in the city's layering.

The Alcazaba and the Gibralfaro

Two fortifications on the same hill, connected by a walled corridor, and most visitors should treat them as one visit.

• The Alcazaba is mainly eleventh-century work, rebuilt between 1057 and 1063 under Badis of Granada, on earlier foundations. It is a palace-fortress rather than a castle: concentric walls, a double gateway bent back on itself to break a charge, and small Nasrid courtyards at the top.
• The Gibralfaro, higher up, is a fourteenth-century castle and the thing to climb for the view over the port and the bullring. There is a combined ticket for the two, which is cheaper than paying separately and which older accounts do not mention because it did not exist.

One change worth knowing: the archaeological collection that used to be shown inside the Alcazaba has been moved out, to the Museo de Málaga. Visitors going to the Alcazaba expecting a museum will find a fortress.

The city fell to Ferdinand and Isabella on 18 August 1487, after a siege of some three months — one of the hardest-fought of the whole campaign, and five years before Granada.

The cathedral, and the works

Begun in 1528 on the site of the main mosque and worked on until 1782, when the money ran out. Its south tower was never finished, which is why the city calls it La Manquita, the one-armed lady.

A current caution. The cathedral has never had the roof it was designed for, and the project to give it one is under way: the first beam went up in April 2024 and the work is expected to take around three years. The rooftop visit was suspended from 1 April 2024 for the duration. Anyone whose plan was to walk the roof terraces — a popular ticket until recently — should check before relying on it. The interior remains open.

The museums, which are the real change

Almost nothing in this list existed when most accounts of Malaga were written, and together they are the reason to stay rather than pass through.

• Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, in the old wholesale market on the river, opened in 2003 — the first of them, and free.
• Museo Picasso Málaga opened on 17 October 2003, in the Palacio de Buenavista, built largely from works given by the artist's daughter-in-law and grandson. Separately, the Casa Natal on the Plaza de la Merced is the actual birthplace and a much smaller proposition.
• Museo Automovilístico, in the former tobacco factory, opened in 2010.
• Museo Carmen Thyssen opened in March 2011, in a sixteenth-century palace, and is strong on nineteenth-century Spanish painting.
• Centre Pompidou Málaga opened on 28 March 2015 under the glass cube on the Muelle Uno — the Pompidou's first outpost outside France. Its agreement has been extended to 2034, so it is not a temporary fixture.
• Museo de Málaga opened in the Palacio de la Aduana on 12 December 2016, bringing the city's fine art and archaeology together under one roof. This is where the Alcazaba's old collection went.

The port, which was a port

The waterfront was working dockland within living memory and is now a promenade: the Muelle Uno has shops, restaurants and the Pompidou, and the Palmeral de las Sorpresas runs beside it under a white pergola. The city beaches — La Malagueta nearest the centre, Pedregalejo and El Palo east of it — are a short walk or bus ride, and the two eastern ones are where the espetos, sardines grilled on a cane over driftwood, are properly done.

Two things in the province

• The Nerja caves, an hour east, hold one of the largest natural columns in the world — about 32 metres, and recorded as the widest naturally formed column. The formations are roughly five million years old; the "billion years" of older accounts is out by a factor of two hundred. One thing has changed and it is the thing people come for: the concerts inside the cave ended in 2019, on conservation grounds, and have moved to an open-air auditorium outside. The claim that Neanderthal paintings were found here, widely reported in 2012, has since been effectively withdrawn.
• The Caminito del Rey, in the Guadalhorce gorge north-west of the city, was a derelict and genuinely lethal maintenance walkway for decades. It was rebuilt and reopened on 28 March 2015: 8.1 kilometres, four to five hours, one way, with a shuttle bus back to the visitor centre. Tickets must be booked online, a helmet is compulsory throughout, children under eight are not admitted, and the path closes when the wind exceeds 55 kilometres an hour. It is one of the best walks in Spain and did not exist in usable form when older accounts of the region were written.

Position

Malaga has the region's main airport and is on the high-speed line to Cordoba, Seville and Madrid. Granada is about an hour and a half away, Ronda rather less, and the Costa del Sol runs west from the city. General practicalities for the region are on the Andalucia page.