Málaga, Spain

     After leaving Cádiz, we had a three hour ride across southern Spain to Málaga. We stayed outside of Málaga in the beach resort town of Torremolinos. The southern coast of Spain is known for its popularity with foreign tourists, especially the English and Germans. The terrain is nice and mountainous, something the landscape in Spain does well. The way the mountains burst forth to the sky and then gently slope away to beautiful beaches is great. The only problem is the tourism industry has managed to rape the land of its natural beauty. Around the southern part of Andalucía and the Málaga province are hordes of white washed villages with old buildings and quaint feels. The downside to so much tourism is that checking in and parking can be a big pain, as we experienced.

     Málaga was founded in the 8th century BC by the Phoenicians. The name of the city probably comes from the Phoenician word for salt because of the fishing salting industry at the port. The city's name changed slightly with the succession of each group that ruled it. The city has becoming increasingly popular in the 20th century as a beach tourist destination due to its warm climate. The average temperature in the winter is in the 60's.

     We left Elijah to beach bum for the day. He had already been to Málaga so he left us to go at it alone. Like in most major Spanish cities, there is a great transport system that runs from Málaga out to the surrounding towns. We caught the train for a couple of Euros into the city. From the central stop, we headed east on the Alameda Principal. This road turns into the Paseo del Parque, a wide open boulevard lined with trees, parks, and lots of greenery. We had a quick bite to eat and headed into the side streets off the Paseo. We found the Cathedral you see above.

     The Cathedral is a Renaissance period structure built over the old walls the Arabs had put up around the city. It is close to the Arabic Castle and provides a great outline of the city. The outside façade is enormous and is framed by the two bell towers. The front was designed later in the Baroque period and features a lot of the intricacies of that movement. The patron saint of Málaga is featured over one of the doors. Interesting is that the right tower is unfinished. There are several theories as to why. We checked on the fee to get in but since I had to leave my student ID at the hotel for check in, we decided not to pay to go in.

     We wandered through the maze of streets. Málaga also appeared to be preparing itself for a Carnaval celebration. Near the Cathedral was a square with tons of metal type plaques built into the sidewalk. Each of them had newspaper headlines about the death of Franco and Spain moving towards adopting a Constitution. We found some old paintings that seemed to be quite prevalent in the early 20th century Spain.

     Since our time was a bit short, we decided to take Elijah's advice and head on over to the famous Castle. The Castle was built by the Moors in the 11th century and is called the Castle of Gibralfar. We got a great student discount there, .80 cents to enter. The Castle rises up the hill and at the top, it has a great view of the city. Along the walk up, we passed through various courtyards decorated with plants, fountains, and great architectural designs. There were lots of places to relax and take in the warm sun, something we loved to do in February. 

     The view was great and we could see the port of Málaga. On the other side of the Castle, they have discovered the remains of an old Roman Theater. It looks similar to the one in Cádiz and was probably constructed around the same time. Historians believe the city had an amazing amount of development under the Roman rule. Across from the Roman Theater is the Picasso Museum. We decided to not go there in order to go see the bullring. Picasso is famous in Málaga since he is from there but we've seen tons of his famous works in Madrid.

     We walked up the Paseo del Parque more to see the bullring. We had a great walk before heading back to our hotel. During the evening, we drove over to the famous port of Marbella. Spain's version of Monaco. We walked around for a bit and saw all kinds of nice yachts, fancy cars, and rich people wandering around. We failed to find a decent place to eat so we headed back to Torremolinos. Our Sunday was spent relaxing on the beach during the morning before we had to head back to Madrid. Hope you enjoy the pictures.

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Cádiz, Spain

     Our trip to Cádiz almost didn't happen. On Monday, I came down with bronchitis and couldn't get out of the bed. I was able to see the doctor mid week and got enough medicine and rest before the trip to be able to make the drive. A former coworker of Izzy's, Elijah, came with us. We pulled out of Madrid on Friday morning for the six hour drive down to Cádiz, the edge of Spain. The city itself, is actually on a tiny peninsula that juts out into the sea so its even further than the edge of Spain.

     We arrived to Cádiz just in time to fill the gas tank. Elijah and I are the kind of people who like to see how far a car can go on a tank of gas. Izzy was quite nervous the last few miles but we finally found a gas station and filled up. Threat of angry wife pushing car averted. We stayed about 10 km outside of Cádiz in Puerto de Santa María. The city itself was busy and alive with activity for the following weekends celebration of Carnaval, the Spanish version of Mardi Gras. The city has a wealth of tradition and is considered to be the oldest city in Western Europe to still be standing. The city was founded by Phoenicians in the 12th century BC. The Greeks attribute the city's history to the tenth labor of Hercules. Since then, the city has been host to the Carthage empire of Hannibal, the Romans, the Moors, and the Spanish.  

     We drove on to Cádiz to have a look around. The first part of the city is quite the beach spot. It is full of apartments and shops that scream beach destination. We drove on past all of this to the old historic part of the city. The entrance to the old part of the city has a big gate from the ancient city. It was decorated with lights and other Carnaval stuff. We parked and headed to the shoreline and walked along that. One of the big attractions in Cádiz is the Roman Theater. It is said to be second largest in the world after the one in Pompeii. It was built in the 1st century BC by Lucius Cornelius Balbus. The theater was discovered in 1980 when a warehouse fire destroyed the building sitting on top of it. During the clean up process, some people noticed that the building appeared to be covering some medieval foundations. It was discovered that the medieval foundations covered up the theater.

     We took a break to have a drink and snack in front of the Cathedral. The Cathedral is host to the diocese of Cádiz. The Cathedral itself is quite impressive and the inside is even more so. We only took a small peak at it because they wanted money to walk around it. If the largest Cathedral in Germany can not charge to walk around, then they shouldn't either. While we were having a drink, we watched some unseemly people annoy a table of people trying to enjoy a quiet drink. We avoided eye contact at all costs in hopes that the crazy woman wouldn't want to come annoy the hell out of us.

     The city at sunset is beautiful. You can feel like you are at the edge of the world. We walked through Él Pópulo district of the city. There were people walking around in costumes and practicing for the coming Carnaval. Others were sitting around tables in the streets sipping beer and wine and enjoying the last bits of a Friday afternoon. When night fell, we continued to wander the streets and sat on a bench for a while outside the city hall to people watch and jabber about the kids at our schools. 

     Back in Puerto de Santa María, we went to a restaurant that was recommended by some friends. It was right around the corner from our hotel. We ordered fried shrimp, some potatoes, steak, and a sampler of fried seafood. We were not to be disappointed as the food was all delicious. It's hard to have bad seafood when you live right next to the water. We learned something new about Spanish customs with shrimp. They fry the entire shrimp and leave the shell on the body. The frying makes the shell soften and they eat the shrimp by tearing off the head and eating the meat with the shell on. To each his own. I continued to peel the shrimp and eat them without the shells. Overall, our trip to Cádiz was fun and the next morning, we headed east to Málaga.

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La Mancha, Spain

     For the entire weekend, we decided to take a drive through the region of La Mancha. Our goal was to visit a couple of the larger cities in the region and find the windmills of the famous Spanish classic Don Quixote. After a wet and delayed start Saturday morning, we finally pulled out of Madrid early and headed on to Cuenca. 

     The city was founded there by the Arabs when they realized that the position of the town was great as a fortress. Over the next few hundred years, the town went back and forth between the Moor kings and the kings of the different provinces of the loosely formed Spain. The town thrived as a textile place and offers visitors a chance to step back in time. The buildings and the architecture are old and seem to run on like one big piece throughout the city. The city is very hilly and has some steep climbs to traverse to get to the top. The cathedral was built over a century starting in 1182 and has the distinction of being the first gothic style cathedral in Spain. The front façade is new as the old one fell apart in the early 20th century. We weren't able to walk around the inside as they were closing for lunch break when we arrived.

     We continued to wind through the streets and stop off at various spots to take in the views of the gorge. Cuenca is famous for casas colgadas, hanging houses, the lean a bit over the edges of the cliffs. There is a long red bridge across the small stream that flows through the town that provides a great view of the hanging houses. 

     We had lunch at the top of the Cuenca hill and decided to head on. We headed through the countryside to our destination for the night, Albacete. The town was nice and had a great area for going out and having some drinks. We found ourselves in a place called The Porsche. It was a nice bar with a Mexican cantina feel to it. We waited a few minutes and took some seats that opened up at the bar. We ordered some drinks, steak, cheese, and other small appetizers to munch on. The steak turned out to be amazing.

     On Sunday morning, we checked out and drove west towards the towns of Manzanares and Campo de Criptana. Campo is part of the tourist route of Don Quixote. As we were changing highways in a town called La Mota del Cuervo, Iz spotted windmills off in the distance. We drove through the town and found the windmills sitting on a hilltop north of the town. We had a wonder around the place to check them out. Most had a smaller shape than the Dutch windmills that are more well known. All of the blades were tied off so they couldn't turn.

     After the wondering around a bit, we continued on to Campo de Criptana. The windmills there are pictured above. They too are on a hillside that overlooks the town. The only difference in the windmills in the two locations is the color of the roofs: brown in La Mota del Cuervo and blue in Campo de Criptana. We had a drink at a nice multilevel restaurant next to the windmills. The view from the upstairs patio was great. There were lots of families out and about walking around the windmills. It was nice to see a lot of people spending time together and visiting important historical places in their country. We had a bite to eat in a town called Alcázar de San Juan and headed on back to Madrid. Overall, the weekend was great and relaxing. For me, it was awesome to see places I read about while at school in Tennessee.

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