If you want culture stay away from andalucÃÂÂa!
You must be joking ?
Malaga City will be perfect for a short break, there are Churches, a Cathedral, Pablo Ruiz Picasso Museum and other museums, the botanical gardens and other gardens, authentic tapas bars and the Moorish cuisine of Al-Andalus, and AndalucÃÂÂa is the birth place of flamenco and flamenco music...most of it is never heard outside of the province, so go find yourself a tapas bar in Malaga and visit a flamenco club to experience the "real" flamenco.
Vista AndalucÃÂÂa in the Santa Paula district, (about 10 mins in a taxi from central Malaga) is extremely popular, they have flamenco nights several times a week, but like most things for the Spanish, they don't liven up until very late in the evening, another place to see flamenco is the Gilbralfao Bar, it's near to the Cathedral.... you can't get any nearer to the "real" AndalucÃÂÂa than that.
Malaga will have millions of bulbs and decorations lighting up the city for Christmas, and the town will be buzzing with shoppers....and not forgetting the cruise ships which usually dock in Malaga port and the passengers have a few hours or a day to explore the city.
There is no where else in Spain where the Moors left their mark in abundance, than in AndalucÃÂÂa, and the province is absolutely teeming in culture....If you were staying longer, there are plenty of places to visit and very easily accessible on the high speed train from Malaga.
I haven't managed to get to Malaga on my last few visits to AndalucÃÂÂa, (been too busy doing other things) but there's a small museum opened this year which displays glass and crystal, set in a "house" setting with furniture and a court yard, and also displaying stained glass windows, which is something that I love looking at when I visit churches/cathedrals.
If you navigate the site from the link below, it will give you an idea of what to visit and the routes.
Click English, click the various pictures above the orange fan, for monuments or gardens etc, or click "all routes" and this will show you a "walking map"
http://cert2.ayto-malaga.es/malagarutas/loader.html
Go and enjoy yourself, but remember it's a city, so take care of yourself , and if you head for Joan and John's cafe from Southport........you'll find nothing .
Sanji