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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