The aire we are staying at is owned by a Spanish/British couple who are RV’ers’ also. You can tell as they designed it in a way that is really user friendly, their experience shows. They are considering a trip to the US so we exchanged some information with them.
Later in the day we headed into Malaga which is a town we are both familiar with from school. We took a local bus into town, as we came around a point of land we had our first view of the harbor. To our dismay their were 3 cruise ships in port including the largest one we have ever seen. It turns out there was actually a 4th one but it was a sailing cruise ship and did not stand out. We knew then that the town would be packed.
Malaga had a really nice vibe to it, and we enjoyed wandering around town. As usual we checked out the cathedral, the castle (Arabic), and some old buildings. The old town is dwarfed by the new town, but it was still quite large. The Spanish do a great job of making their down town cores pedestrian friendly. The walkways are wide, and most streets have very limited access for cars and delivery trucks, so the roads can also safely be used for pedestrian traffic. Ton really loves how they make it easy to enjoy a stroll.
The high light of the day was the Picasso Museum. Picasso was originally from Malaga and the museum did a good job of showing the different phases of his development. Unfortunately there are no photos allowed in the museum. It is an excellent museum without having any of his famous works. Because of this they focused more on how his work developed from his early days as a student until his late works in his 90’s.
After that we were wandering down a street looking for the market when we came upon an old bar that looked interesting, it was founded in 1840 and was the official supplier of Sherrie for Queen Isabel II before she abdicated and moved to France. They served glasses of different sherries out of giant wooden casks. They had a variety of different local sherries which is a regional specialty around Malaga. They also had a very interesting way of keeping the tab, after you order they take a piece of chalk and write the amount you owe for the round on the wooden bar in front of you. It’s simple and you know right where you stand, and as an Englishman next to us explained you do not have to worry about losing your spot at the bar when you go to the bathroom, because for someone to take your spot at the bar, they also inherit your tab! Unfortunately we forgot to get a liter to go.
We ended the evening sitting around with the owner of the aire and two English couples where we were given some excellent advice about travel. Malaga was another great stop, we can see why people flock to the Costa del Sol.