Discover boutique city hotels for urban escapes in Málaga, Spain

Cultural clout, ancient castles and a carnival all about burying a giant sardine – the beach-beeliners who breeze through Málaga en route to the Costa del Sol are missing out. Following in the footsteps of its most famous son, the city has risen as an art-world star: among its bounty of museums and galleries is the first non-Parisian Pompidou pop-up, as well as plenty on Picasso. In the old town, Málaga’s Moorish heritage is as detectable in its candlelit hammams and cafés serving sweet mint tea as it is in its 11th-century citadels. Snap your way through street-art-clad Soho, bound beachwards to tuck into espeto de sardinas by the sea, then make like a Malagueño and toast two millennia of history at a raucous rooftop bar.