12 treasures of Spain

Founded as the city’s great mosque and enlarged three times as Córdoba grew into the capital of a caliphate, the Mezquita is a forest of columns carrying double arches of stone and brick. After the Christian conquest it became a cathedral, and in 1523 work began on a Renaissance crossing raised in the middle of the prayer hall: two faiths in one building. Its mihrab, the prayer niche, is lined with mosaics by craftsmen the Byzantine emperor Nikephoros II sent to Córdoba.

We arrange a private guide; the prayer hall is at its quietest in the first hour of the morning, and on the nights the Cabildo sets, its own visit in light and sound, «El Alma de Córdoba», shows it after dark. Las Casas de la Judería, old houses joined around patios and fountains, is a short walk away.

Still the official residence of the King of Spain, and used for state occasions, the palace was raised after fire destroyed the old Alcázar of the Habsburg kings on Christmas Eve 1734. Inside are works by Caravaggio, Velázquez and Goya; the Throne Room, under a ceiling painted by Tiepolo; the Royal Armoury, with the weapons and armour of Spain’s kings since the 13th century; and a collection of string instruments by Antonio Stradivari.

We arrange a private guide to take you through it. Palacio de los Duques Gran Meliá, a 19th-century palace hotel with a historic garden and a pool on the roof, is a few minutes’ walk away.

Ronda stands on both sides of the Tajo, the gorge the Guadalevín has cut 100 metres deep through the town, and the Puente Nuevo joins them. Its architect, José Martín de Aldehuela, built it of stone quarried from the floor of the gorge, after the bridge before it had fallen six years after it was finished, killing some fifty people. Inside it, an interpretation centre tells the story.

It is at its most striking from the gorge below. We arrange an official guide for the bridge and the old town, and a table with a view of the Tajo as the sun goes down.

Teide rises from the Las Cañadas caldera among lava fields and rock spires, often above a sea of cloud. The Guanches called it Echeyde, the home of Guayota, the evil one: in their legend he stole Magec, the sun, and hid it inside the mountain, until the god Achamán freed it and sealed the crater with the Pan de Azúcar, the cone that crowns the peak. When Columbus’s ships passed Tenerife on 24 August 1492, their crews saw great flames rising from it.

We arrange the day: the cable car to La Rambleta at 3,555 metres, with the crater rim a short walk away. The last stretch to the peak itself needs a permit, and permits go months ahead, so we apply as soon as your dates are fixed. After dark, we arrange stargazing with a guide in the park.

Gehry’s building, its galleries clad in titanium and limestone, stands on the bank of the river. Inside, Richard Serra’s The Matter of Time, a run of spirals and ellipses in weathering steel, is a museum within a museum; outside stand Louise Bourgeois’s Maman, a spider almost nine metres tall made in tribute to her mother, a weaver, and Jeff Koons’s Puppy, a terrier of nearly 40,000 flowers.

We arrange a private guide, or the museum’s own two-hour tour, which takes in its exhibitions and corners of the building usually closed to visitors, on request. Lunch can follow at one of the city’s Michelin-starred tables.

The beach and its bay take their name from their shape, a shell seen from above. Queen Isabel II made La Concha fashionable in 1845, when her doctors prescribed bathing in the sea, and the court followed her; from 1893 the Miramar Palace on the bay was the summer home of Queen María Cristina. The railings along the promenade, designed by the city architect Juan Rafael Alday in 1916, and La Perla, the seafront spa of 1912, belong to the same age, and a boat crosses from the port to Santa Clara island, one of the city’s quietest corners.

We can arrange the bay under sail, in a private yacht with a skipper, at sunset if the weather allows. On Monte Igeldo above it, Hotel Akelarre shares its house with Pedro Subijana’s restaurant, and every room looks out to sea.