August 9. Malaga

Made another two hour trip South today to Malaga – the central town for Spanish Costa De Sol . We really liked it. Way different from Gibraltar.

The link above describes general features of the town. We covered some of them. The most important one we wanted to visit was Alcazaba, 1000 year old  palace and fortress. It was one of the prettiest we saw. The palace unfortunately does not have most of elaborate decorations it must have had but overall structure is preserved in a very nice very nice condition.

In general, we liked it that Christian rulers who took over from Moors did not destroy all the beautiful architectural marvels left over from past rulers. I am sure there was some destruction but what remains it often amazingly beautiful. And it looks that occasionally they’ve added to it as well. One interesting example is the royal palace in Seville. Christian kings stripped some of mosaics and replaced them with royal coats of arms – possibly painted on. With time, these had faded away almost entirely. However the original mosaics remain, some of them even featuring elaborate calligraphy. Poems? Verses from the Koran?

We wandered the streets taking in the distinct smell of the town and enjoying it. Seville smells like dust and old wood. Malaga has some spices added into the mix. It is also more humid in Malaga and 44 degrees Celsius felt hotter there than in Seville. We visited a number of resort towns during our trip. This one was different. It felt independent and cosmopolitan. It did not wear its resort town status in your face.

For lunch we had tapas in a place I do not remember the name of. They had warm and cold tapas in the bar counter and you can just point to the dishes that interest you. Very good food. Then the owner stopped by and we chatted for a while. He is Irish and spent 14 years in NYC where his parents still own an Irish Music bar Paddy Reilly. We got to try that now. And after that he lived for extensive periods of time in Poland, France, Columbia, Italy. It looks like he has a talent for opening and running Irish bars. And now he also has family here too. He speaks five languages fluently. He even tried to dabble with me in Ukrainian. So cool!

After lunch we went to the beach. The bad thing is that after days of encountering ice cold water and deciding “no way” today was finally the day I did not bring our bathing suits. And the water was perfect. We are much deeper into Mediterranean and also in a bay. At least Georgia had her swimming trunks and Isabella just wore her panties. They did not clash with other swimming ladies. On the other hand Dan and I looked like a couple of bikini hotties on some extreme UAE beach. We got the looks :)

The ride back was sooo boring. Beautiful scenery but very monotonous - fields, fields, fields. In the evening we walked into Seville cathedral one last time.

Back to Lisbon tomorrow!!