Kim and I decided to do Granada and the Alhambra on Thursday and do Malaga today, Wednesday. We also decided to avoid the possibilities of getting lost and paying for parking by taking the bus into town. So after breakfast and all that jazz we walked into Torre del Mar and caught the bus into Malaga.
We figured we would want to take the bus to the end stop- we weren’t really sure… as we were headed into town we got a little nervous and the stop that looked the most promising we stalled too long to actually get off at. So we got off at the last stop and walked for about 15 minutes or so to get back into the main/touristy part of town.
We couldn’t find the tourism office and the information center at the bus stop had been closed, so we just wandered around, stopping every once in a while to look at the “i” spots that had little maps on them with all the major tourist places listed. It worked out alright for us as we managed to find these really neat ruins… but I’m getting ahead of myself…
We started getting hungry and decided to stop for lunch. We picked a place, pretty much at random, and sat down. Turned out to be a good location as a couple of musicians showed up shortly after us and played nice accordion and clarinet music to give atmosphere to our lunch. We decided to order alternating things on the menu and then try each others’ food. This was we’d basically try everything on the 11 Euro menu. Our options for starters were chicken soup with bacon or sausage and garbanzo beans soup. Our options for the main dish were chicken in a red sauce with fries or fish with rice. We didn’t really understand all that until it showed up though… we actually thought that the fish dish was going to be turkey… Spanish language failure… but it turned out ok. Everything we ate was pretty good and we finished off with a desert of vanilla cream pudding with some sort of citrusy flavor we couldn’t place…. Like some candy we used to have as children that we couldn’t exactly remember. Then we finished off with some sort of caramel tasting shot- a “digestif” as the French call it. And on top of all that, drinks were included! Pretty good if you ask me!
Oh! And while we’re sitting there, enjoying our main dish, one of the servers came over and put a pink carnation on the table next to me and said, “For you Princess” and walked away. It was kind of awkward and Kim and I laughed a lot, but it was fun and I walked around the rest of the day with my pink carnation. :)
After lunch we went back to our wandering. There was a major church in Malaga and so we
headed towards that. But when we got there they wanted 4 Euros to get in. We both decided that in all our European travels we had seen the insides of enough free churches to not care to much if we didn’t see the inside of this one… who wants to pay 4 Euros to get into a church?? As a Catholic I sort of feel like Jesus would be over turning some tables if He were there… who charges people just to go IN to a church… lame. (I’m not talking about up in a bell tower or down in a crypt… just to get in the door…like I said, Lame.)
So instead we found these awesome ruins:
We figured we would want to take the bus to the end stop- we weren’t really sure… as we were headed into town we got a little nervous and the stop that looked the most promising we stalled too long to actually get off at. So we got off at the last stop and walked for about 15 minutes or so to get back into the main/touristy part of town.
We couldn’t find the tourism office and the information center at the bus stop had been closed, so we just wandered around, stopping every once in a while to look at the “i” spots that had little maps on them with all the major tourist places listed. It worked out alright for us as we managed to find these really neat ruins… but I’m getting ahead of myself…
We started getting hungry and decided to stop for lunch. We picked a place, pretty much at random, and sat down. Turned out to be a good location as a couple of musicians showed up shortly after us and played nice accordion and clarinet music to give atmosphere to our lunch. We decided to order alternating things on the menu and then try each others’ food. This was we’d basically try everything on the 11 Euro menu. Our options for starters were chicken soup with bacon or sausage and garbanzo beans soup. Our options for the main dish were chicken in a red sauce with fries or fish with rice. We didn’t really understand all that until it showed up though… we actually thought that the fish dish was going to be turkey… Spanish language failure… but it turned out ok. Everything we ate was pretty good and we finished off with a desert of vanilla cream pudding with some sort of citrusy flavor we couldn’t place…. Like some candy we used to have as children that we couldn’t exactly remember. Then we finished off with some sort of caramel tasting shot- a “digestif” as the French call it. And on top of all that, drinks were included! Pretty good if you ask me!
Oh! And while we’re sitting there, enjoying our main dish, one of the servers came over and put a pink carnation on the table next to me and said, “For you Princess” and walked away. It was kind of awkward and Kim and I laughed a lot, but it was fun and I walked around the rest of the day with my pink carnation. :)
After lunch we went back to our wandering. There was a major church in Malaga and so we
headed towards that. But when we got there they wanted 4 Euros to get in. We both decided that in all our European travels we had seen the insides of enough free churches to not care to much if we didn’t see the inside of this one… who wants to pay 4 Euros to get into a church?? As a Catholic I sort of feel like Jesus would be over turning some tables if He were there… who charges people just to go IN to a church… lame. (I’m not talking about up in a bell tower or down in a crypt… just to get in the door…like I said, Lame.)So instead we found these awesome ruins:
“The old Muslim castle, known as the Gibralfaro sits on a ridge that overlooks the city of Malaga. At the bottom of this ridge is the Alcazaba, the younger Muslim palace-fortress. A long rampart connects the two castles. The Alcazaba was constructed in 1057 by Badis, a taifa ruler.” Says some tourist website. And Wikipedia adds that the Alcazaba “(from the Arabic for citadel al-qasbah, القصبة) is a Moorish fortification in Spain. The word derives from the Arabic word Al-casbah,[1] a walled-fortification in a city.)”… anyway, the one in Malaga is “the best preserved in all of Spain.” 
So we went up to see how much it cost to get into this and it was only 2,60Euro- with the added bonus of being only 60 centimes for students!!! Best 60 cents ever spent! We climbed around and took TONS TONS TONS of pictures!!!
Then we met Jose, a Spanish painter. We started talking and after a while he told us about his work- he sells the little painting for 5 Euros a piece and the profits he takes down to South Africa once a year and buys painting kits for the children with AIDS in a hospital down there. He sells his larger paintings for profit to live off of and support his family. Kim and I each bought a couple of the little ones off of this buoyant man and went merrily on our way with our very pretty little works of art. We both agreed that buying paintings like that can sometimes be lame when you buy them from souvenir shops or they are not very well done; but that this was different because we talked to this guy- we had a story to go behind our purchase and it was for a good cause (we decided we believed him becaus
e we had no reason not to) and on top of all that- they were nice pieces of art. :)We continued to stroll the Alcazaba and then decided it was warm and we wanted ice cream. Lucky for us, on leaving the ruins we found ourselves right in front of an ice cream spot. We took our cones and sat down on the steps to the Alcazaba and who should come upon us but Jose, on his way out for the day. He invited us to have “the best sweet wine” just down the street at a restaurant/café he likes. So we joined Jose and went into El Pimpi. We chatted for a while and then we each went our separate ways. :) I love random experiences like this one!
After our wine (which was accompanied by Spanish olives) Kim and I headed up to the top of the hill that the Alcazaba sits on to get a view of the city. The bright sun was starting to get lower in the
clear sky, so the pictures are all slightly overexposed but the picture in our minds will remain of that lovely, warm afternoon with a brilliant sky and the clear blue sea framing the city below us.The day was waning and it was time to head back in the direction of the bus station. So, without a map, we started off, taking a few pictures and such along the way of course. But as we got to what we felt must be “close” we could not find where we needed to be! Our meager Spanish, “Donde esta estacion autobus?” got us pointed in the right direction a few times over and after several minutes of relative lost-ness we managed to find the bus station.
We made it home in time to have hot ham and cheese sandwiches and soup with Mercedes and Robert for dinner. :) Then we did a touch more planning for our trip to Granada the next day- including printing off driving directions! And then we called it a night, exhausted but highly content with the lovely, amazing, fun and warm day we had!! 
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