The old-town lanes around Carrer Fonollar

Behind the church, the old town is three or four streets deep and almost entirely white. Carrer Fonollar runs along the top of the sea wall past the Maricel palace and Cau Ferrat, the house the painter Santiago Rusiñol filled with ironwork and blue tiles; arches cross the lane overhead, and the gaps between buildings open straight onto the Mediterranean.

White walls are the reason this works. They bounce light back into faces from every side, so even at an unpromising hour the shade here is soft and clean, and skin tones fall into place with no reflector. The colour comes from the bougainvillea, the blue doors and the sea at the end of the lane.

Midday is genuinely usable because the streets are narrow enough to stay in shade, which is rare. Late afternoon is better still: the whitewash goes warm, and the light coming off the water reaches up into the lanes. Evening is when the restaurants set out and the alleys turn into a thoroughfare.

This is a residential quarter — people live behind those doors — so keep the session moving and the noise down, and do not block a doorway for a shot. Cau Ferrat and Maricel are museums with tickets and their own hours; check them if you want interiors, and check what a paid session requires. Everything is within four hundred metres, so this pairs naturally with the beach at Sant Sebastià.