The principal shopping streets are the narrow pedestrianized streets of Concepción, Palacio, Pérez Carasa and Berdigón and the roads leading off this main drag. Sara Merino has a good selection of dresses for special occasions.

Huelva's oldest parish church, the Iglesia de San Pedro, was constructed in the 15th and 16th centuries on a hilltop site of a mosque and next to the remains of a medieval fortress. It faces a pleasant palm tree-lined square, the Plaza San Pedro.

This whitewashed 15th-century chapel is famous for its associations with Christopher Columbus. Positioned on El Conquero hill, about 3 km north of the city centre, it commands a wonderful view of the Odiel wetlands. Like most sanctuaries and hermitages, it was originally built outside the town centre and used to be surrounded by fields and open countryside

Although most of Huelva's historic buildings suffered badly in the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, several pre-18th-century churches escaped destruction or were successfully restored. The most famous of these is the Sanctuario de Nuestra Señora la Virgen de la Cinta, with its links to Columbus, while the oldest is the Iglesia de San Pedro.

The Iglesia de la Merced used to serve as the church of the neighbouring convent, the Convento de la Merced, and was designated a cathedral in 1953. It is one of the best examples of Baroque architecture in Huelva province, with a striking pink exterior and a bright white marble interior. It dominates the Plaza de la Merced, an elegant square lined with tall palm trees.

Huelva has always been known more for the beaches in the surrounding area, than for the city itself. Known by the Phoenicians as Onuba, it has a long history, closely linked to the sea and nearby mineral riches, and apart from the less attractive industrial port area, has some interesting sights, although many monuments were destroyed in the 1755 Lisbon earthquake.

La Soledad hermitage on Calle Jesús de la Pasión was first erected in the early 1500s as a church for the neighbouring Hospital de la Misericordia, which was founded in 1516. From 1854 the hermitage was used as a school and a hospital.

As well as building impressive new residential areas, theatres and railways (see Fact 1), the British Rio Tinto mine workers (see Fact 1), who lived in and near Huelva, had a profound and lasting effect on Spanish life - they introduced football to Spain.

Plaza de las Monjas can be described as the main square in the city of Huelva. Its origin is to be found during the foundation of the Convento de las Madres Agustinas; hence the name 'monjas' meaning 'nuns'. The convent was built in early sixteenth century, therefore suggesting the square was created in front of the convent's entrance during the first years of this century.

Atlantic Copper is a subsidiary of the North American group Freeport-McMoRan. It is the third largest copper smelter and refinery in Europe and leads domestic copper production, with a capacity of 300,000 tonnes per year, from one million tonnes of copper concentrate from different parts of the world.

Palacio Mora Claros is an early twentieth century palace built by, Moisés Serrano and José María Pérez Carasa, and was restored in 1997.

For 'foodies' one of the best places to visit is Mercado Municipal del Carmen, which Huelva's municipal covered market. Inside, it is lined with hundreds of stalls selling all types of produce, from fresh meat, fresh fish, fruit and vegetables, to local cheeses, wines, honey and handicrafts. It is usually buzzing with locals all buying in fresh goods.

The cemetery of Huelva was opened in 1928 and the project was initially designed by architect, Don Francisco Marín in 1907

As a busy port, Huelva's staple food on offer in its bars and restaurants is a wonderful variety of fresh fish and shellfish, some locally caught. It is renowned throughout Spain for its "gambas blancas" (white prawns) and many types of clams of differing sizes: almejas, chirlas and coquinas to name a few.

Returning to the omnipresent theme of Sr Colon, visitors to Huelva will find a host of modern-day monuments to the revered explorer. American sculptor Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney's 37-metre Cubist statue sits at Punta del Sebo, where the Tinto and Odiel rivers merge. It depicts a Franciscan friar from La Rabida (see Fact II), not Colon himself as many people incorrectly assume, and is a homage both to Colon and the Christian faith.

Muelle de Tharsis is a dock showing a good example of the design and technology of the nineteenth century European avant-garde in terms of civil engineering and constituting a specialized and unique element within the port.

Juan Ramon Jimenez, author of the hugely popular Platero y yo, prolific poet, and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1956, was born just outside Huelva. Controversially, he wrote erotic poems about his sexual experiences with nuns from the Holy Rosary Order, with whom he worked in a Madrid nursing home. The poems were only published in 2007, nearly 50 years after his death.

Within the  Nuestra Señora de la Soledad Cemetery in Huelva lies a grave with a curious history. The man buried there changed the course of the Second World War – even when he was already dead.