Malaga Cathedral

Malaga Cathedral tickets: which one to buy

The basic ticket covers the cathedral and its museum, and includes an audio guide in most versions. The one worth paying more for is the rooftop visit, a guided climb of about 200 steps onto the vaults, where you walk between the barrel roofs with the harbour on one side and the Alcazaba on the other; it runs in timed groups and books out in summer. Guided tours combining the cathedral with the Roman theatre and the Alcazaba cost several times the entry and make a coherent morning, since all three sit within 300 metres.

Day trips from Malaga to Seville or Cordoba often advertise cathedral tickets; those are for the destination churches, not this one. Free entry is offered on weekday afternoons for a short window. Cruise excursions bundle the cathedral into city tours at a steep markup. Buying online saves queueing only in high season, since the line is rarely long.

Visiting Malaga Cathedral: what to see

Building began in 1528 on the site of the main mosque, to a plan by Diego de Siloe, and stopped in 1782 with the south tower unfinished, which is why the city calls it La Manquita, the one-armed lady. The money that would have finished it was diverted, according to the accounts, to road works and to aid for the American revolutionaries. The north tower reaches 84 metres and is the second-highest in Andalusia after the Giralda.

Inside, the nave and aisles rise to the same height, a Siloe trademark, and the vaults are Renaissance rather than Gothic, which gives the interior a bright, ordered feel. The choir stalls carved by Pedro de Mena in the seventeenth century, with forty saints in cedar and mahogany, are the finest single work in the building. Two eighteenth-century organs face each other across the choir, both still playable. The rooftop walk, opened to visitors relatively recently, is the reason many people come.

Malaga Cathedral opening hours and the best time to go

Open Monday to Saturday from morning to early evening and on Sunday afternoons, with services taking priority. Rooftop slots start in the morning and the last of the day catches the sun going down over the port, which is the best of them; the roof closes in rain and strong wind. Malaga is hot from June to September, and the roof has no shade at all, so a midday slot in August is punishing. The interior stays cool.

Dress code is applied at the door, shoulders and knees covered. Photography without flash is allowed. Allow an hour inside and another for the roof. The gardens beside the cathedral and the narrow streets north of it hold most of the city's tapas bars, and the Picasso museum is a five-minute walk, which makes this an easy half day on foot. The cathedral gardens on the south side are open to the street and give the best view of the unfinished tower stump.