Malaga

November 21 – 24, 2017

Bus #SN1 takes you from downtown Granada to the bus staion where we caught the bus to Malaga. It’s just under 2 hours and a nice trip from Granada to Malaga. At the bus station we talked to the tourist information lady about things to do in the city and decided on the hop on / hop off bus again. It’s a great way to get your bearings in a new city and see some of the sights at the same time.

We only got a little lost walking to our hostel, Casa al Sur, mostly because there’s a few of them with the same name. After getting her recommendations on places to eat, we took her advice and went to La Perergrinas for sea food. Good choice!

We spent the rest of the day wandering through the old city and walking streets. There’s a LOT to see there. The Christmas lights are all up but not yet lit. Too bad we’ll likely miss that as it looks like it will be beautiful!

Spaniards eat dinner late, go to bed late and get up late so it’s hard to find breakfast places that serve food before 9 am. We don’t sleep in well so like to get moving in the morning. At least at this hostel (Casa al Sur) we could make ourselves a pot of coffee in the morning which is awesome 😀

The hop on / hop off bus didn’t start until after 10 so when we finally found a stop to hop onto, we still had a 15 minute wait. It’s not as good as the Barcelona bus but was worth it anyway. We got a walking tour with it, entry into various museums and an hour long boat ride in the harbour which was nice. There was also a free glass of wine (actually sangria) at Roy’s cafe which we enjoyed. We tried to order something after but the waitress didn’t seem very interested in serving us. Sue finally got her attention at one point. She said “uno momento” and a good 10 minutes later still didn’t come back. When I saw her take the order of someone who just sat down, we left. Fine. We’ll take our business elsewhere. Which we did. After wandering around we found a nice bakery with a nice chocolate treat that had nuts and seeds on it too. Yum. That was after trying the roasted chestnuts on the street. We learned we aren’t fans of those.

Back at the hostel shortly before 8 pm we enjoyed a nice cup of tea in the kitchen and quit for the evening. We’re not Spaniards 😉

Our last day turned out to be the warmest since Lisbon and by mid day we had stripped several layers and were down to tee shirts. We walked the pier, harbour and beach and treated ourselves to gellato. On the way back we stopped at Casa Guardias as recommended to try the local wine. That was interesting as it’s served straight from the keg and you stand at the bar and drink it. After wandering some more through the walking streets of the historical downtown we called it a day.

The church is so big I could only capture it with a fish eye lens

Nativity scene close up

Alcazaba

Can you find Sue and Anita in this photo?

Antigua Casa de Guardia. Wine tasting bar where you can get bottles refilled as well.

The beach

Cafes on the street everywhere

El Pimpi. Found in a beautiful old 18th century mansion house, the restaurant is the oldest tapas bar in Malaga. It was named after the local young men who would help down at the dock; unloading the boats and acting as guides for the ships crews and passengers.

Narrow streets

Harbour tour is included in the hop on hop off bus

Malaga harbour

Cathedral Christmas lights

How many different kinds of coffee ARE there?