Málaga, Spain

Málaga, in Spain’s Andalusia region, is now a veritable museum-goer’s paradise. The first wave included a Picasso museum (the artist was born here) and the sprawling 8,000-square-foot CAC (Centro de Arte Contemporáneo), which has hosted exhibits by Ai Weiwei and Marcel Dzama. Since then, the Carmen Thyssen, an outpost of Madrid’s Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum that houses the famous baroness’s extensive private collection, has opened; so has a five-year pop-up of Paris’s Centre Pompidou displaying works by Magritte, Chagall, and Kahlo. The Pompidou’s location along Málaga’s renovated waterfront is marked by a hypermodern, rainbow-hued glass cube. And in the industrial space of a former tobacco factory is a sister site of the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg. Archaeology buffs can comb the extensive collection at the Aduana Palace (it houses both a fine arts and archaeological museum) or head to the Antequera Dolmens (a prehistoric burial site that earned its UNESCO World Heritage nod in 2016). Unwind afterward at the lavishly appointed Gran Hotel Miramar; it opened at the end of 2016 in a historic 1926 Art Nouveau building across from Málaga’s most timeless attraction: Malagueta Beach. —Fiorella Valdesolo