Weather: 27º C and Sunny

Malaga was worth the visit. In fact we enjoyed it a lot and given the opportunity will come back.

We had no intention of getting out of the old town and succeeded. First stop was breakfast down a side street. The freshly squeezed orange juice was the best we have had. Bruce had bacon and eggs for a change while Anne ended up with a burnt toast bun and jam – they did not have any croissants.. The food picture only showed one egg but the waitress got him 2 – must have thought he was fading away. J He enjoyed it although didn’t worry about the chips.

Off down a large pedestrian only avenue (Marques de Larios) which was mainly full of women’s clothing stores. This avenue finished at Plaza de Constitution from where we went to the Cathedral. Again this cathedral was architecturally quite different on the inside. It had been built on the site of a mosque. It is affectionately called by the locals, La Manquita – the one armed lady. This is because it should have had 2 towers when it was built but only one was completed. This was the first cathedral that had the choir area open to walk through. The choir had miraculously survived the civil war burnings.

Now we headed for the Roman Amphitheatre and behind it, the Alcazaba. The Moor rulers initially resided in this palace, followed by Isabella and Ferdinand who lived there for a short time after they defeated the Moors. As well as a palace, there was a fort which was a further 20 minute walk up the hill. We had intended to do this but decided against it as we could not see us having enough time to get everything else in if we did. From the palace a large part of the fortress looked like it might be ruins which would be inaccessible. While the fortress would have given better views of the city the ones from the palace were fine.

Back down the hill for a nice lunch and main meal of the day. From there it was off to the Picasso museum which consisted of works which Picasso had kept for himself and his family members. These works consisted of drawings, paintings, sculptures and pottery. Some very unusual works in here as one would expect. Definitely worth the minimal entrance fee discounted for Bruce throughout the day, due to his special smile. A bonus was the Dennis Hopper exhibition which was there for a few months. This exhibition showed his paintings, photography and movie exploits (as a painter/artist, writer, director and producer). This was a bit of an eye opener, especially as his artistic career was in the mid 60s and was similar in style to Andy Warhol (a friend) and others. Some of his photography included pictures of his friends and celebrities of the time. There was also an area with about 15 screens where you could watch and listen to excerpts of some of his movies. Could have stayed there all day watching them.

Now it was down the road to the house where Picasso was born. He was born in Malaga but left by the age of 10 and although he did return occasionally for a while, he never returned after the age of 19. His father was a painter but was a second tier painter. There was a very good audio included with the tour. It went into quite a bit of detail about his parents, his upbringing and about the development of some of his artwork, in particular the pottery element of it. There was also a museum of his pottery. We would have taken photos of some of the pieces but there were too many guards around the place. Need to find a good book.

It was now about 7pm and time to find a place for a drink and some people watching. Bruce had an Irish Beer and Anne had a glass of what turned out to be ****** white wine as they would not serve Sangria in anything less than a 1 litre jug.

All in all, we like Malaga.