2 Days in Málaga

Be at the gate on Calle Alcazabilla 2 for 09:00, when the fortress opens and the first coach groups are still an hour away. The Ayuntamiento's shop sells single entry at $8.16 (€7) and the combined ticket with Gibralfaro at $11.65 (€10), reduced $3.50 (€3) and $5.83 (€5), free under 6 and free for everyone on Sundays from 14:00. Buy the combined one, because the castle is this afternoon's last stop.

Hours 09:00 to 20:00 from April to October, 09:00 to 18:00 in winter, last entry an hour before closing. The lift on Calle Guillén Sotelo, named on the official page, skips the ramp. An hour and a quarter for the gates, the palace quarters and the terrace over the port.

The Alcazaba and Roman Theatre guided tour with entry at $14.66 starts from the glass pyramid outside at fixed times and lets you stay inside afterwards. The Alcazaba tickets page compares it with the official price.

Two minutes back down to the theatre at the foot of the wall, free, run by the Junta de Andalucía: 10:00 to 18:00 Tuesday to Saturday, 10:00 to 16:00 Sundays and holidays, closed Mondays and on 1 and 6 January, 1 May, 24, 25 and 31 December, no entry in the last thirty minutes. Fifteen minutes for the stands, the stage and the interpretation centre. The Roman Theatre page has the holiday dates.

On a Monday look from the pavement and go straight on.

Across the road in the customs palace on Plaza de la Aduana. The Junta's museum is free for accredited EU citizens and $1.75 (€1.50) for other passports, open 09:00 to 21:00 Tuesday to Saturday and 09:00 to 15:00 on Sundays and holidays, closed Mondays except the eve of a holiday. Fine arts and archaeology under one roof (the old Bellas Artes collection lives here now).

Forty-five minutes is the highlights. The Michelin-starred Blossom is on the fourth floor if lunch needs to be early. The Museo de Málaga page has the holiday openings, which include 19 August and 8 September.

Six minutes west to Calle Molina Lario 9. General entry is $11.65 (€10) with a ten-language audio guide included, $10.49 (€9) for seniors, $6.99 (€6) for ages 13 to 17, free for Málaga residents. The cultural visit opens at 10:30 on weekdays and closes at 18:30 in winter, 19:30 in spring and 20:00 from June to late October.

Saturdays close at 18:00 all year and Sundays run 14:00 to 18:00 only, with last entry 45 minutes before closing. The free window from 08:30 to 09:00 is the one-day plan's trick. On two days the paid hour is the better visit.

The rooftop route is suspended for roof works with no price or date printed. The skip-the-line cathedral ticket with a guide at $27.92 is the guided version. The cathedral tickets page says when the queue makes it worth it.

Five minutes to the marble street the city opened on 27 August 1891, and into the lanes either side of it for lunch. Casa Aranda on Calle Herrería del Rey has churros at €0.60 and a chocolate at €1.95 on its own price list (the site carries a 2023 copyright, so read them as last-known). The Bib Gourmand La Cosmo is behind the cathedral.

The Michelin-listed Beluga is on Plaza de las Flores. An hour and a quarter. The Calle Larios page has the Feria and the Christmas lights.

Six minutes to the Palacio de Buenavista on Calle San Agustín 8. Full access is $15.15 (€13), reduced $12.82 (€11), free under 17, with the web-app audio guide on your own phone included. Open every day including Mondays, closed only 25 December and 1 and 6 January, closing at 18:00 from November to February, 19:00 in spring and autumn, 20:00 in July and August, last entry thirty minutes before.

The museum's visit page says to buy online 'to make sure you get your ticket'. The reserved Picasso Museum ticket is the same entry with a fifteen-minute margin on the slot and free cancellation to 24 hours before. Ninety minutes for the twelve rooms, the temporary exhibition and the archaeological remains in the basement.

Every Sunday the last two hours are free, which the Picasso Museum tickets page turns into a plan of its own.

Eight minutes down to Paseo del Parque for bus 35, which the castle's own page says runs from the centre roughly every thirty minutes. The EMT's site was unreachable when we checked, so confirm the stop on the day, or take the twenty-minute climb up Paseo de Don Juan Temboury that the same page describes. The castle keeps the Alcazaba's hours and admits the combined ticket without a second purchase.

Walk the whole wall: the bullring, the port, the cathedral's unfinished second tower and the bay are all below you at 132 metres. The interpretation centre is in the old gunpowder magazine. Forty-five minutes, then out to the mirador, which is free and stays open when the castle does not, and down by the Coracha, the walled path to the Alcazaba's foot.

The Gibralfaro page has the route.

Eleven minutes down and across to Alameda Principal 18, the bodega founded in 1840 and open Monday to Thursday 10:00 to 22:00, Friday and Saturday to 22:45 and Sunday 11:00 to 15:00 on its own site. Málaga's sweet wine is poured from the barrels behind the bar. The story of the tab chalked on the counter is not on the bodega's site, so take it as folklore until you see it.

Half an hour. The Málaga wine page explains the Pedro Ximén and Moscatel grades from the DO's own rule-book.

Three minutes to Calle Marqués de Larios 18, where the wine and tapas tour meets: four bars, eight tastings and four wines including a Málaga Pedro Ximénez, three and a half hours, rated 4.9 by 1,278 travellers, free cancellation to 24 hours before. It is the one meal in the two days that needs reserving. The cheaper evening is the flamenco show at Alegría, one hour from $26.99, then dinner on your own.

The nightlife page has the rooftops and the licensing hours, which let bars serve to 02:00 and an hour later at weekends.

Start under the one surviving arch of the Nasrid shipyard on Calle Atarazanas: 260 stalls in an iron hall built 1876 to 1879 and restored 2008 to 2010. The municipal markets page prints its hours as 09:00 to 13:30, so this is a morning building and the fish counters are the reason to be early. Breakfast at one of the bars inside.

Forty-five minutes. The Atarazanas page covers the Sunday question, which the fetched page does not answer, and the Atarazanas food tour if you want it explained stall by stall.

Five minutes north to Plaza Carmen Thyssen, Calle Compañía 10. General entry to the permanent and temporary shows is $13.98 (€12), $17.48 (€15) with the archaeological site under the building, reduced $9.32 (€8), free under 18 and free for everyone on Sundays from 16:00. Open 10:00 to 20:00 Tuesday to Sunday, last entry thirty minutes before, closed Mondays except 18 May, 12 October and 7 December, and reduced to 10:00 to 15:00 from 15 to 23 August.

Nineteenth-century Spanish painting. An hour and a quarter. Wheelchairs on loan.

The Carmen Thyssen page explains the archaeological add-on.

Nine minutes across the top of the old town to Plaza de la Merced 15, where Picasso was born in 1881. The museum charges $3.50 (€3), $4.66 (€4) with the temporary exhibition, €0.30 more online, with a free six-language audio guide. Open daily 09:30 to 20:00 including holidays, free on Sundays from 16:00 to 20:00, admission ending fifteen minutes before closing.

The birthplace entrance ticket at $4.65 is the reseller's version. Forty-five minutes, then the square itself and a coffee on a terrace. The Picasso in Málaga guide puts the birthplace, the museum and the baptism church on one walk.

Down Calle Granada to El Pimpi at number 62, the bodega open since 1971 with hours of 12:00 to midnight on its own site, or on to Balausta in the Palacio Solecio at 57 to 59, Michelin-recommended. At 12:45 the first has tables. By 14:00 it has a queue.

An hour and a quarter, then south past the cathedral's west front to the park.

Nine minutes to the three parallel walkways of palms and subtropical trees between the old town and the port, laid out from 1897. The municipal page prints no opening hours and no price, so treat it as a street: free, always. Walk the shaded middle path east past the Ayuntamiento building, with the Puerta Oscura gardens climbing the Alcazaba's flank on your left.

Fifteen minutes end to end. The Parque de Málaga page names the trees.

Four minutes across Paseo del Parque to the port. The Palmeral de las Sorpresas is the shaded walkway along the water, Muelle Uno the open quay of shops (10:00 to 22:00) and restaurants (at least 12:00 to midnight) at its end, both opened in 2011. The Michelin-starred José Carlos García and the Repsol-listed Godoy are here.

The 90-minute daytime cruise at $23.27 boards from Paseo del Muelle Uno 1 with a swim stop from May to September, boarding closing twenty minutes before. On a hot afternoon it is a fair swap for the beach hour. The Muelle Uno page has the parking cap.

The glass cube at the end of the quay, Pasaje Doctor Carrillo Casaux. Both exhibitions cost $10.49 (€9), the permanent collection alone $8.16 (€7), the temporary show alone $4.66 (€4), reduced $6.41 (€5.50), free under 18 and free for everyone on Sundays from 16:00. Open 09:30 to 20:00 every day except Tuesday, closed 25 December and 1 January.

The six-language audio guide is free and there are lockers on floor 0. An hour and a quarter. On a Tuesday the plan-B table swaps it.

The Centre Pompidou page has the Bono Arte Xperience arithmetic.

Two minutes past La Farola, the lighthouse, onto 1,200 metres of medium-grain sand with a Blue Flag, lifeguards daily from 15 June to 15 September and at weekends in the shoulder months, showers and sunbed hire on the city's beach page. An hour and a quarter, or the rest of the afternoon in summer. The bullring behind the promenade runs its own tour daily 10:00 to 18:00 at $18.64 (€16).

The La Malagueta page has the accessible bathing point and where lines 3 and 11 stop.

From the Plaza de Toros stop, EMT lines 3 and 11 run east along the coast road towards El Palo, both in the Ayuntamiento's open-data feed for this route. Line 34 ends at Pedregalejo. The single is $1.63 (€1.40).

Get off at Pedregalejo, about fifteen minutes on, and walk down to the promenade: a row of small coved beaches, the Baños del Carmen of 1918 at the western end, and the chiringuitos with their beached boats full of sand and embers. The alternative is the promenade on foot from La Malagueta, about forty-five minutes flat. The Pedregalejo page has both.

The tuk-tuk tour with espetos on the beach at $48.05 does the ride and the sardines in one two-hour booking.

Twenty minutes further along the promenade, or one more stop on bus 3 or 11, is El Tintero on Avenida Salvador Allende 340 in El Palo, open 12:00 to midnight with the kitchen 12:30 to 23:30 and no daytime reservations, on its own site. Waiters walk the terrace calling out plates and you take what you want. The sardines come off the boat's embers five to a cane.

It is the one chiringuito whose facts we could verify from its own site, so it is the one we name. The saying that sardines are only for months without an R is folklore the regional tourism board repeats and no rule enforces. Bus 3 and 11 run back to the centre.

The last is not stated on any page we could read, so ask the driver. Or book the 20:00 session at the Hammam Al Ándalus and eat afterwards: the swaps section explains.