We meet you at Málaga airport, whatever time you land, and drive inland and upward into the Vega de Granada with the Sierra Nevada building on the horizon. The afternoon is yours to check in and sleep off the flight. In the evening we gather for the opening briefing and dinner, which is where the group actually becomes a group. Overnight in Granada.

We start early with one of the first timed slots for the Nasrid Palaces, while the courtyards are still cool and empty. The Alhambra is a building designed around light: reflections in the Court of the Myrtles, punishing dynamic range up in the Generalife. Late afternoon we cross to the Albaicín and stay for sunset at the viewpoints facing the palace. Overnight in Granada.

We transfer to Córdoba and go straight into the Mezquita, one of the hardest interiors in Spain to photograph well: more than eight hundred columns, very low light and repeating forms that flatten if you shoot them straight on. Afterwards the Judería and its courtyards, and at dusk the Roman Bridge in blue hour. Overnight in Córdoba.

Seville has the most to photograph in the least time, so the day is structured tightly: the Plaza de España nearly empty at first light, then the Royal Alcázar and the Giralda, and Santa Cruz once the heat drops. The evening is flamenco in a small venue, close to the performers, with low light and fast movement. Overnight in Seville.

The road climbs into the Serranía to Ronda, split in half by a gorge a hundred metres deep with the Puente Nuevo thrown across it. We get below the bridge, because the view everyone knows from above is not the strongest one available. In the afternoon we drive south to Algeciras, with the Rock on one side and, on a clear evening, the mountains of Morocco on the other. From here everything is about the eclipse. Overnight in Algeciras.

In the morning we take a boat into the Strait: overhead the southbound migration is starting, and below there are dolphins, pilot whales and the small resident group of orcas that hunts bluefin tuna here in these weeks. The afternoon is the Eclipse Academy: minute by minute theory, individual setup of every camera and telescope, solar filters checked, sequences programmed and a full rehearsal in real time. Nobody walks to the observation point still deciding what to do. Overnight in Algeciras.

We are at the observation point on the coast near Tarifa well before first contact. At 09:40 the Moon touches the edge of the Sun; for an hour very little seems to happen and then everything does, as the light shifts colour, the temperature drops and hundreds of crescent suns appear under the trees. At 10:45 the photosphere disappears and the corona comes out over the sea with Africa underneath, for more than four minutes. In the afternoon we choose as a group: a processing session or a photographic outing into the Strait Natural Park. Overnight in Algeciras.

Breakfast and transfer back to Málaga airport. You leave with the Alhambra at dawn, a flamenco stage, the gorge at Ronda, an orca in the Strait and a corona over the sea on the same memory card, and with a group of people who were standing next to you when the last one happened.