Málaga

11-12 March 2017

After spending the night in Ronda and waking up this morning to view the bullring, we then drove the 1.5 hours to Málaga.  We decided to take an alternate route taking us along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, but first we climbed up and over some mountains before dropping to sea level.  It was s beautiful drive, pretty reminiscent of mountain roads in northern California.  The ride along the Med wasn't what I was hoping for, with beach towns pretty much blocking the view, but it was a pleasant drive all-in-all.

We checked into our Airbnb around 4:30 PM.  Hanna had visited here a few weeks ago so she knew she wanted to be down by the Mediterranean Sea around sunset.  We figured we had time to hit the Alcazaba first, so we headed out:

Town square filled with restaurants

Beautiful old church

Cool.

When we arrived at Alcazaba it was close to closing so we continued walking to the Sea.

Great pedestrian walk along the Med.

Sunset over the Med.

Tim touching the Mediterranean Sea.

We didn't do so well finding a place for dinner in Ronda, so we were hoping for something better tonight.  Being on the Sea, I asked Hanna to look up "seafood tapas" and she started naming off some places.  I stopped her when she mentioned a place with "pesca" in the name because it is fish related.  Where we wound up with an amazing, incredible tapas bar that is now the standard we will hold tapas bars to. 

We pretty much ordered what the guy next to us had...a plate of lightly fried sweet peppers, a whole octopus, and a couple of shrimp skewers for Tim and Hanna.  As usual, they gave us a bonus dish of olives and bread to ago along with it.  Overall, it was a great meal and fantastic experience.

Amazing peppers

Octopus...my favorite

Even picky-eater Hanna enjoyed the meal!

Happy Hanna

After dinner we returned to our apartment to get some sleep to prepare for a huge morning of visiting many sites.  First stop is the Picasso Museum. 

Picasso was born in Málaga, so of course they have a museum.  This place didn't have any of him famous works since it is mostly works given to and donated by family members.  Plus, the exhibit was undergoing renovations so they only had 33 works on display, but they discounted the entry fee making it worth the time and money to see Picasso where Picasso lived.

Outside the Picasso museum.

After the museum, it was back to Alcazaba.  On the way we passed by the ruins of a Roman amphitheater right at the base of Alcazaba:

The tour book mentioned that if we couldn't see Granada's great Alcazaba, then visit this one, so we did:

When we bought our ticket to Alcazaba we were offered a discounted visit to the Castillo de Gibralfaro, a fort above Alcazaba, so we decided to check that out as well.  Little did we know that after climbing to the top of Alcazaba we had to go all the way back down and then climb up past Alcazaba and continue climbing for nearly 1 mile.  But, as usual, the views of Málaga were worth it.

View partway up to the Castille

At the top of the fort

Tim checking out an ancient well.

By the time we got back down it was nearly 3:00 PM and Hanna had a 4:00 PM bus to catch, so we headed back to the car.  During the walk we happened upon a park bench with no other than Picasso hanging out on it:

Left to right: Tim, Picasso, Hanna, Gerri

We got Hanna to the bus station and said our goodbyes.  We will hopefully see her in a few weeks during her spring break when she plans to fly to wherever we happen to be...she's hoping for Italy.