Hotel Castillo Santa Catalina

Worth getting out of bed for

Once dismissed as a gateway to the costa, Málaga is worth more than a stopover these days: tick the Picasso Museum (he grew up here), impressively aged Moorish fort the Alcazaba and landmark cathedral off your list, then consider a few less obvious options: an invigorating bathe at Hammam Al Andalus; street art worth tracking down in the barrios of Soho and El Ejido; or hire bikes and cycle along the seafront via promenade Paseo Marítimo Antonio Banderas (another famous child of the city). The nearest beach to the hotel is the city’s Playa de la Caleta – although a 40-minute drive east, the shores around Nerja and Maro are picturesque and often less populous.

Local restaurants

International flavours and pin-sharp presentation are the hallmarks of Aire Gastrobar – a fine-dining restaurant with linen-topped tables in La Malagueta neighbourhood: roasted grouper with artichoke cream, curried scallops, oxtail, suckling pig and steak tartare are finessed into polished plates that mean you’ll still have room for crema catalana or mojito sorbet. A ten-minute walk from the hotel, Restaurante María is a timber-lined dining room open for lunch daily (and dinner on Fridays and Saturdays) where Piti and Enrique have been proudly championing Castilian fare since the Nineties. Its menu takes classical turns via huevos rotos, shellfish aplenty and Iberian roast lamb; paella is cooked to order, the house salad has more pincers than leaves – and there’s a daily-changing rotation of guisos (or casseroles), too. Palm trees frame bay views through the floor-to-ceiling windows at Chiringuito Mediterraneo, where the seafront setting inspires a seafood fest of paella, grilled sardines and whatever fish is fresh from the market.