Situated at the heart of the Comares Palace, this rectangular patio features a pool and hedges of evergreen myrtle on its two long sides, with a porticoed gallery at either end. The still water in the pool, which reflects the tiled porticos at each end, almost reaches the columns so it seems to be floating,

The first thing you'll see when you arrive at the Seville Fair from the city centre is the portada - the gateway, where you traditionally enter the fairground. Everyone gets their photo taken in front of the portada.

Sevillanos are very well-known, throughout Spain and the wider world, for their fierce pride in their city.

Villancicos, zambombas, and other musical. Flamenco, the music and dance form of Andalucia, has influenced, and become fused with, many other different types of music, from jazz to classical.

The Cadiz Carnaval, like most decadent celebrations, was officially banned under Franco's dictatorship from 1937. While most Spanish towns and cities followed the decree, the Gaditanos, being famously independently-minded, continued with their annual celebration.

One of the world's top young golfers has close family links with Andalucia. Sergio Garcia has roots in Almeria, where his mother is from, and his sister was born.

It's an irresistible topic for writers - in the early 20th century, those who waxed (lyrical, or not) about La Lidia included Ernest Hemingway and DH Lawrence. For Hemingway, it was about that macho rush of adrenalin, the visceral battle of man against beast, and morbidity. In Death in the Afternoon , he remarks that "people must have an interest in death. and when they can see it being given, avoided, refused and accepted in the afternoon for a nominal price of admission, they pay their money and go to the bullring." In The Plumed Serpent, Lawrence's female protagonist takes a very different view of a corrida in Mexico City: "For the first time, a bull seemed to her a fool. She had always been afraid of bulls, fear tempered with reverence of the great Mithraic beast. And now she saw how stupid he was, in spite of his long horns and his massive maleness. Blindly and stupidly he ran at the rag, each time, and the toreadors skipped like fat-hipped girls showing off."

Sevilla is beloved of movie and TV directors for its range of well-preserved buildings from every era and style, from medieval to regionalist.

Since 2002 Malaga´s major draw has been its Picasso museum. This 66-million euro project is housed in the 16th-century Palacio de Buenavista. The permanent collection - including 155 works donated by the artist´s daughter-in-law, Christine Ruiz-Picasso, and her son Bernard - is divided into periods, illustrating every stage of Picasso´s extraordinary career.

The city's name started out as "Xeres" in Roman times (though the Phoenicians were here before them), then became "Sherrish" under its Moorish rulers (giving its name to the fortified wine, finally ending up as "Jerez de la Frontera" in the late 14th century, due to its location on the border of the Muslim and Christian-ruled regions. In Catalan, Italian and French, sherry is still called "Xeres", harking back to the Roman/medieval Castillian word, "Xerez".

Jaen´s name comes from the Moorish word geen or jayyan, meaning stopping post on a caravan route. King Ferdinand III captured the city from Ibn-Nasr, who subsequently founded the Nasrid kingdom of Granada in 1246, and Jaen had a strategic position on the frontline between Christian Spain and Moorish Granada. It was used as the gateway for the armies in the Reconquest, and Ferdinand and Isabella launched their final assault on Boabdil´s Granada from here in 1492.

The British engineers and miners who worked in the 19th and 20th centuries wanted to make themselves a home-from-home. So they built English-style houses complete with front gardens, right in the middle of Huelva. The Victorian Barrio Obrero, also known as the Barrio Reina Victoria, which dates from 1916, is a microcosm of suburban England in Andalucia. Based on the concept of a garden city, it has avenues of mock-Tudor semis, with lawns, hedges and rose gardens.

Nothing to do with Bizet´s opera, these are hillside townhouses with private walled gardens. They originate from Moorish times, and the design of the carmen expresses the Islamic idea of the inner paradise, a reflection of heaven.

When first built in the 10th century, the Mezquita was (and still remains) one of the largest mosques in the world - at 24,000m2, it accommodated 10,000 worshippers, being second only to Mecca as a pilgrimage site.

Few people who saw the James Bond movie, Die Another Day, could forget the scene where Halle Berry strolls slinkily out of the sea watched by an appreciative 007. That beach was La Caleta, the island with the DNA replacement clinic was the Castillo San Sebastian, and the city of Havana itself, complete with 1950s American cars, none other than Cadiz.

In the 1880s, two Belgian mining engineers (see Fact II) and amateur archaeologists, brothers Henri and Louis Siret, started to excavate at Los Millares, a Copper Age site just outside the city. Their finds - ceramics, tools, jewellery - are now displayed in a cutting-edge new archaeological museum, with an area dedicated to the Sirets, who funded all their excavation work themselves.

Located at the top of the town, the Arco de los Gigantes dates from 1585, and was built in honour of King Philip II. The late-Renaissance arch was constructed using Roman masonry with sculptures and inscriptions, rescued from the Roman town which was probably destroyed around the same time (see Fact 3). You walk through this magnificent stone triumphal arch to get to the castle walls. There are three other gates in Antequera: Puerta de Malaga, Puerta de Estepa and Puerta de Granada.

Marbella has three one-Michelin-starred restaurants , the most famous of which is Dani Garcia's Calima (he is said to be the next Ferran Adria - cherry gazpacho with anchovies and queso fresco snow), in the Hotel Gran Melia Don Pepe. The town is home to over 600 more eateries, making it one of Andalucia's top culinary destinations.

No one can come to the hilltop town of Ronda, Andalucia's most-visited pueblo blanco, without being aware of its significance in the bullfighting world. From Pedro Romero, who revolutionised bullfighting in the 18th century by doing it on foot (as opposed to horseback) here, to corrida fans Orson Welles and Ernest Hemingway (See FACT II), who both loved the town and visited frequently, to famed matador Antonio Ordoez, whose finca is nearby (his old friend Hemingway's ashes were scattered there). Ordoez started the Feria Goyesca, a colourful tableau of Goya-period costumes (the painter often portrayed bullfighters), based on his paintings. The spectacular pageant celebrates the painter (Goya), the bullfighter (Romero) and the art (bullfighting).

The Nerja Caves were formed five million years ago. This 4km-long cave system was once inhabited - skeletons, pottery, ornaments and implements of stone, flint, copper and bronze dating from Neolithic times were found when the caves were discovered in 1959, as well as animal paintings (not viewable, unfortunately).