And back home again… Although Philosopher and I had a good time, we wouldn’t class the trip as one of the Great Holidays… Readers may remember that we had changed our destination from Chamonix to Malaga largely because of the weather. That meant that our expectations of Med sun were probably unrealistically high – it was January, after all. In fact, the weather was sunny about half the time, which was probably about as good as you’d get. We explored the city, visited various museums and sights, and spent a day in Ronda. Here we are enjoying the first beer of the trip, when we arrived…
You can see a very fancy sailing ship in the background. The ‘Danmark’ a training ship from Copenhagen. Here it is:
We stayed in what was billed as a very fancy hotel, the Icon Malabar, very convenient for everything – the airport bus dropped us handily close. Would I recommend the hotel? Hmm. It was a very elegant building, recently opened. We had a big, well-appointed room with a balcony overlooking a little street, but the noise outside meant we had to have the window shut at night. Fancy air-con was available, but it only gave out heat, not cool… so the room was boiling hot and stuffy. Too hot for me to sleep comfortably. Then the breakfast was only OK, not great. Battleaxe is very keen on hotel breakfasts. But there was an excellent tapas bar right opposite the front door.
On our first day we had a good wander round the Old Town. Many attractive buildings and zillions of shops and eateries.
The area is dominated by Malaga’s very large and imposing Cathedral – I liked it better than many of the gilded edifices we have tripped round in so many European cities. Here are a few pictures:
Well, if he – or she – was in there, we didn’t see them.
After the gilded Cathedral, we had a quick look for the next Euro-city must-see, the overpriced tourist trap grand cafe. Malaga didn’t seem to have a particular one – but we found this, right by the Cathedral…
Then it was off to the Roman theatre, which is just below the old Moorish fortress, the Alcazabar.
By the time we had looked at that, it had clouded over and started to rain, so we legged it to the nearby Picasso Museum – along with everyone else in Malaga, because the place was rammed. Now, I’ve just read on Google that during his life PIcasso produced about 147,800 pieces, consisting of: 13,500 paintings, 100,000 prints and engravings, 300 sculptures and ceramics and 34,000 illustrations… now, don’t get me wrong, he was a great artist, but with that level of output not all those works are going to be great. It felt to us that a good number of the less great pieces had ended up in Malaga… but I liked this one – it is just how I feel when it is breakfast in bed time and Digby is determined to raid the tray…
After lunch – at a very good self-service pinxto place (pinxtos are sort of tapas on slices of bread), we found my favourite gallery experience, the Carmen Thyssen Museum. Now, in Madrid, there is a famous world-class gallery, the Thyssen-Bornemisza, which we visited a few years ago. In 1985 billionaire art collector Baron Hans Thyssen married the much younger Carmen, who had been Miss Spain 1961…
Carmen started her own personal art collection, much of which is housed in the gallery in Malaga… and most of the paintings are wonderfully bad. Nineteenth century Spanish, flamenco dancers, toreadors – think 1950s kitsch, chocolate boxes… I had a happy time picturing the conversation at the Thyssen breakfast table:
‘But darling, honestly, I want a gallery of my very own, to put my things in… and not here in stuffy dull old Madrid, either. I want it somewhere hot, somewhere cheerful… I know, how about Marbs…?’
Hans looks up from his stock-market report. ‘Don’t be so silly, sweetie-pie. You can’t possibly have a gallery in Marbella. I’ll find you a place in Malaga. One of those little old palaces or something.’
‘And I can put whatever I like in it? All my favourite things?’
‘Yes, sweetie, of course you can… anything for you…’
And so on…. here is one of the paintings… But the gallery had an excellent shop and a nice cafe.
The next day we went to Ronda. Now, Battleaxe is usually excellent at doing her homework and preparing for all eventualities, but this time was a Big Fail. The weather was cloudy, Ronda was absolutely freezing and we did not have the right clothes on. First, to make matters worse, the coach took us to a little cave-village called Setenil de las Bodegas. It was quite interesting but being us, we shot round it in ten minutes and then had to wait ages in a little coffee place for the rest of the party. Here are a couple of pics:
By the time we got to Ronda the weather had deteriorated markedly. We rapidly gave our guide the slip and first of all, visited the Plaza de Toros – one of the oldest in Spain. You could go in and see all the background workings, including the iron-gated pens where the bulls are kept before entering the arena. Ugh. I am surprised it is still allowed.
Then, we rushed along to the famous bridge and gorge… freeze freeze, photo, photo…
Then a very long lunch in a warm restaurant, then a search for a cheap clothes shop to find things for us to wrap our frozen bodies up in… which we did find. A gilet for me, a jacket for him…. Sure, we didn’t see much of the town – too cold, but apart from a few pretty streets in the centre and the big sights, Ronda did nothing for us…
Next day, thank goodness, it was hot, unbroken sun. We went for a long walk along the beach. It was lovely…
Spent much time beach-combing – great selection of shells and sea-glass. Then, a pretty walk and sunning ourselves in the gardens of the Alcazabar.
Oh, this post is getting too long. What else? Huge branch of department store El Cortes Ingles. Look at this wine!
A final few photos…
