Spain Part IV: Malaga

Wednesday May 28

We were able to sleep in somewhat as we were catching an afternoon bus to Malaga, our next stop. The bus was uneventful.

Malaga is a tourist city that is a haven for UK visitors looking for a weekend trip and some sun. It feels much more like Mexico than a working city like the others we have seen, though all of them were quite touristy. So there is a lot more English here. We are mainly using Malaga as a jumping-off point for a couple of day trips.

The first night we arrived in the city and made our way for the short, 15-minute walk from the bus station to our Air B & B. It is in a slightly seedy area, but seems safe enough and is close to grocery stores. It is similar to the Madrid apartment for amenities – a microwave, basic hotplate, etc. – nice to have this flexibility.

After relaxing for a short time, we made our way to the Roman Coliseum site in the heart of the old city (20-minute walk). There is a small interpretative display indoors and very interesting to see the outdoors part of the theatre as well. Towering over the coliseum is another Alcazaba or Muslim fortress, which we only viewed the outside of before making our way the Malaga Cathedral a short walk away.

The Cathedral was having an organ concert later than evening so while we got kicked out well before the stated closing time, we got to hear some of the rehearsal as the two organists working on the two organs were practicing.

Not having enough time to visit the inside of the Alcazaba and do it justice, we walked down near the shore and watched some amateur dance groups perform on a stage (with castanets), and got talked into a sunset cruise on one of the boats in the harbour.

After that, we power-walked the 25 minutes back to the hotel as we had to be up early the next day for a day trip to Gibraltar.

Thursday May 29 – Day trip to Gibraltar

Today was our day trip to Gibraltar. We had debated including this in the itinerary because we weren’t sure if it was worth seeing given the travel time, but we decided to go anyway after watching some convincing marketing material from Gibraltar’s tourism board about the nature reserve there. Essentially the town of Gibraltar is built around the harbour and port there near the sea. The rock of Gibraltar is exactly what you think it is, a limestone mass that takes up most of the land area of the territory.

This is one of the most popular day trips in southern Spain, though regular bus service isn’t great. There are no buses that go directly into Gibraltar – you have to go to the nearby Spanish town and walk across the border and into the actual town of Gibraltar from the airport, which is just over the border. So we took an organized and cheap organized bus “tour” that essentially just drove to the town of Gibraltar with a bit of commentary. There was an option for adding on a tour of the rock, but I thought it wasn’t going to be thorough enough for our liking as it included only 1.5 hours on the rock (nature reserve) and 3.5 hours of free time in the town, mainly shopping (Gibraltar has no taxes so alcohol, cigarettes, etc. are cheap there and the high street has many high-end shops).

It was a full bus and the guide, Carlos, was a bit of a ham and very clear on instructions for getting through security, customs, duty-free limits, meeting points and times, etc. I thought at first he hated his job but by the end I think he prized efficiency and running the trip on time – fair enough, shepherding around 60 people across a border and back on tight timelines probably requires such an attitude. He reminded me a lot of the guide on a day trip we took to Stonehenge and Bath in 2013.

Border control was not a problem and we got back on the bus after walking across, which then drove to “downtown” Gibraltar. 

We then walked to the cable car up the mountain and paid the exorbitant free to take the 6-minute trip up.

After that we found some of the Barbary macaques that populate the rock. No one exactly knows how they got there from Africa, and the legend is as long as they are there, the territory will remain under British control.

The top of the rock offered good views of the harbour area, though it was still somewhat cloudy in the morning.

We walked around the Skywalk, and along a trail that led to St. Michael’s caves. These spectacular saves were formed by water seeping through the limestone and have been written about since Roman times. The caves have been outfitted with a sound and light show, including the largest cave, which also hosts musical performances.

We walked down the Apes’ Den, which was bereft of apes (though we saw many elsewhere).

There were a few more interesting things to see. British engineers had built a series of siege tunnels by burrowing into the limestone for use during the Siege of Gibraltar during the American Revolution, which went on for several years.

There were additional tunnels built during World War II as well, which also had a pub built in the tunnel (with a Spitfire that the town had raised money to build as a war effort contribution), and a separate exhibition about what life was like under the siege. All of these were accessed by walking down the path to the townsite from the top of the rock.

A suspension bridge:

There were also some restorations of the artillery batteries that were used for centuries, including in WWII.

We made it back to town in plenty of time for the return bus, and opted to relax for evening as the bus driver missed a turn and so the trip was late.

Friday May 30 – Day trip to Antequerra and the Caminito Del Rey

This was one of Nancy’s top things to do on the trip. We had another day trip tour that took us first to the dolmens near Antequera. The dolmens are essentially ancient burial mounds dating to 3800 BC that are built into a hill. The larger of the two also has an ancient well in it, and when opened contained many skeletons. It is a UNESCO world heritage site.

The next stop was at Antequera, near the dolmens. We had a brief walking tour of the town, which included Roman ruins, the Alcazaba or Muslim (and later Christian) castle that towers over the town, and a few churches. 

We then had some free time, which we used to go through the free museum and the Alcazaba, which is very well preserved and looks a proper castle.

After a bit of panic finding the proper meeting point, we were off to the main attraction, the Caminito Del Rey, which is a very famous hike/walk along the side of a canyon/gorge. The ending point of the hike is a hydroelectric reservoir; the original trail was built and used for the construction of the dam (which you can see at the start of the walk) but deteriorated over the years and was rebuilt after several deaths.

The current trail was completed in 2015 and is mainly a wooden walkway and bridges built into the cliff face, which affords amazing views.

A train line runs parallel to the trail on the other side of the gorge for parts of the walk.

There was also a famous suspension bridge over a gorge. 

After the walk, we had a bit of time relaxing at a picnic area and enjoying an expensive lemon slurpee – it was very hot (~35C) with large parts of the trail being out in the sun.

Then we took our bus back to Malaga and made some supper in our apartment. There we discovered that you cannot run an iron and have a shower in Spain at the same time. The water heating must be electric and it tripped the breaker. It took some time to find the electrical panel to reset as it was hidden, it but we got there eventually.

Spain Part III: Granada

 Monday May 26 – Granada

We got up early to take a taxi (there was some confusion there but we made it) and then a train from Madrid to the next stop, Grenada (which apparently means pomegranate, which is the city’s symbol). We changed trains in Cordoba, and all of this took a bit of doing to figure out and get on the next train. We got the upgraded ‘comfort class’ and sat opposite an English couple playing crib without a board to Cordoba. Maybe that will be Nancy and I with Agricola in 30 years.

It was a half-hour walk from the station to the hotel so we opted to walk to see a few things on the way, but it was incredibly hot (35C) and we needed to take lots of breaks so it took longer than we thought and eventually we abandoned the scenic route and headed to the hotel directly. We did snap some pictures of a church and a basilica that we never wound up getting back to,

There are orange trees everywhere there, including on the public streets and boulevards. Imagine going out and picking an orange from your tree in the yard (sadly they are not eating oranges but they smell nice). I guess you can make marmalade out of them though.

Our hotel was a decommissioned monastery, which was cool, including an intact cloister and bell tower. 

After resting for a bit, rearranging the room (which had three beds) and getting some groceries at the local Dia, we went for a short orientation walk.

The main attraction of Grenada is the Alhambra, a collection of palaces (some dating from the Muslim era, before the Reconquista of the peninsula) and Nancy wanted to be sure to see everything. It was some distance from the hotel (another half hour walk) and on the top of a hill. We took in the outside view of many of the buildings, including baths, a Renaissance palace from the Christian era, using the scenic pedestrian path up to the Alhambra, which passed by many towers built into the still-extant original fortress wall that runs up the side of the hill. We also went through some of the many gates that watch over the approach to the monument.

After that, we went down the hill and stopped by to see the exterior of the cathedral and many of the other buildings in the old city area. This included a sunset visit to a famous viewpoint, St. Nicholas Mirador, to catch golden light on the city as darkness fell.

Tuesday May 27

We got up relatively early to get to the Grenada Cathedral when it opened. We viewed both the cathedral and the royal chapel, where the famous Catholic Monarchs (Ferdinand and Isabella), who united the kingdoms of Aragon and Castille and started putting together modern Spain, are buried. Grenada was one of the cities they conquered to further the Reconquista, so they are a big deal here.

 The Alhambra was made famous by a book by Washington Irving, as he visited the site and wrote “Tales of the Alhambra” about it. There were a couple monuments to him on the site as it led to the protection and restoration of the area instead of letting it fall into ruin.

In the afternoon, we had timed tickets to the palaces at the Alhambra. The palaces are the main attraction at the site, and are one of the world’s best examples of original Muslim architecture (though I had seen many similar examples on the “Stans” tour in 2022 – Nancy hadn’t though as she was in lockdown for most of that trip). The later Christian kings also added on some much less sumptuous rooms.

The palaces were beautiful and included many typical features such as baths, prayer rooms, intricate stonework and carving, and interior courtyards with pools and fountains. They also had gardens, with more flowers, so Nancy liked them better than the royal palace we had seen the day before.

Once through the palaces, we went through the Alkazaba fortress, which again was originally a Muslim construction used and modified by the Christians after they took the city in Ferdinand and Isabella’s time. It had nice viewpoints of the city at the top of the main tower.

After briefly visiting the gift shop, we continued on to the third main attraction at Alhambra, the Generalife, which essentially was a pleasure garden for the Muslim and later Christian rulers of Grenada/Spain. They had gardens in their palaces but also wanted a separate garden to relax away from palace life, while still being available if needed. The gardens included one more palace, which was also used by the Christians as a summer palace later on.

The gardens went on and on (in a good way) with lots of beautifully-manicured hedges and roses.

This part also included an aqueduct system and storage cisterns that were in place when the site was built (it also hosted a mini-city of its own in addition to the site’s military and royal uses).

After that we went back to the hotel, stopping by a Burger King for a 5-Euro combo meal since our diets on the trip had been low in the protein department to date. Burger King is strangely popular here - hardly see them at all at home but they are everywhere (they amusingly call their kiosk ordering system "Auto-King" and it's advertised on signs). We also switched our grocery store allegiance from Dia to Mercadona, which had more selection and similar or lower prices.

After a long day with a lot of walking, it was back to bed at the monastary.