Malaga is a place of contrasts for me.
There is so much beauty and history that can be overlooked by mass tourism. Having arrived only two days ago, I can see how I could fall in love with this place. Historically, Malaga plays an important role in the forming of Spain. From their music, food to the artists that were born here. Andalusia is a Southern territory of Spain, it is broken into right provinces: Almeria, Cadiz, Cordoba, Granada, Huelva, Jaen, Malaga and Seville (Sevilla as the locals know it). In my time here I will only have time to visit half of these. So far I have seen Sevilla and Cordoba. Each place really needs so much more time to really understand how the cities work. If only we had more time...
Now in Malaga, we have taken the opportunity to visit a few towns between Sevilla, Cordoba and Malaga. The drive from Sevilla is short, taking about two and half hours (if you drive like a German, which you should! They are safe and fast... the cars I mean...). But if you opt to stop along the way which we did (despite lack of sleep and a hangover) you can see some naturally beautiful villages along the way. Our first stop from Sevilla was Grazalema. Grazalema is known in the travel books as the white village. In fact all the houses are the same colour white and it is a beautiful site to drive up to the village through the mountains. Pictures don't do it justice, just as it doesn't if I explain the way the little "pequeno" cobblestoned streets looked. A quick tapas and refreshment stop and we were on our way to our final destination Malaga.
Definitely worth stopping along the way if you can to Ronda, another town with a very famous bridge. We did not but that is not saying its not worth it. Arriving into Malaga was pretty easy and we found our accommodation very quickly. Parking is an issue but would be worse if we were in the main town, we had opted to stay in a town outside for this reason.
Dinner was a walk through the Playa ..... and we found a restaurant aptly named, "Pequeno Bufalo" - well rated but it was not the reason we went. It was busy (first good sign) and the name of the restaurant appealed to me. We were right, sitting down to a cerveza, huge salad and huevos rotos con jamon (my favourite - translates to scrambled eggs with shaved ham). We had more than enough food to feed four but of course we devoured every morsel between two. Going home content, we woke the next day to meet at the local restaurant Mandala Cafe (right on the beach and two minute walk from my language school). We ordered a Dasayuno menu, in Spain this is common, it comprises of tea or coffee, an orange juice (freshly squeezed of course) and usually a bread roll with crushed tomatoes and olive oil or roll with jamon or cheese. All the options are delicious. We decided this day this place would be our local but it turned out they do not open all the time and certainly not before 9.30am!
At breakfast it was decided to not waste the entire day sitting by the beach drinking cervezas but instead to jump in the car and complete a hike at Torcal de Antequerra. These limestone mountains look very similar to pancake stacks. They are created when the weather turns cold and rain and snow breakdown the rock over time. Hundreds of years of this has turned this region into a magnificent playground for locals to hike, picnic and spend their weekends. Arriving before 3pm, we paid our $3 euros and took the bus up the mountain. After 3pm, you can drive to the top yourself. There are two walk ways, we did the green however there is a yellow path that takes approximately 2-3 hours. It is definitely worth a visit. We had taken A-45 highway up from Malaga which is over an hour drive to the hike but opted for the more scenic A-7000 highway back to Malaga. We saw a different landscape completely to the highway up, we drove through forest and national park, small towns and even saw goats grazing on the road. Exhausted from our trip, we had a early dinner and went straight to bed.
My first day at Enforex was easy, spent the morning looking for a breakfast place (since as I said my first preference was not open) and ended up at a small corner store for the locals and ordered a bocadillo which was huge, made a mental note to myself to ask for the half size portion next time! School was good as usual and although its only my fourth week I feel like I have improved. Cannot say I'm fluent but I am definitely understanding a lot more. The accent in Malaga is quite different to the teachers in Sevilla but that is common and I'll need more time to really get that part. We got some homework which I did whilst at lunch at our local and after a few drinks in the sun, went home to change and get ready for a dinner. We decided to eat in the old town of Malaga and do a bit of exploring. Boy was I shocked with the city centre, its actually very beautiful, again I think I was so shocked because you always associate Malaga with drunk British tourists and we have seen none of this, but then again it is September and end of season, we only seem to overhear Italian, French and German tourists. Definitely a good time to visit! We haven't had to wait at restaurants and the atmosphere is generally really good and most importantly safe. We had taken the bus into the city which was relatively easy and we took the night bus home. We managed to work our way around the town with too much trouble. Helps when you have GPS on your phone or handheld map but all the monuments of interest are in close proximity to each other. We managed to snap some pictures of the Catedral and Teatro Romano in our first walk through. All the buildings however are very pretty and historic.
Bar hopping is a must in Spain and we managed three places that night. First drinks at El Trillo, http://www.trillomalaga.com/el-restaurante and then to Madeinterranea Bar for tapas, menu was diverse and reasonably priced. Food in Malaga is definitely on the larger side of portions compared to other regions of Spain. Generally two tapa to share is enough or three if you are exceptionally hungry. Then finally for drinks at Casa Lola, a great find and old traditional bar. We need to go back hungry because everything looked really really good to eat also.
Tuesday our local restaurant was closed and we were left to find out our way to a new restaurant to try in Pedregalejo Playa, this place on Paseo Maritimo el Pedregal had great reviews on Tripadvisor (hit and miss), noted as having the best seafood paella in Malaga was a big call so we decided to try it for lunch before coming back for the Paella for dinner another night. The restaurant was called Miguelito El Cariñoso, the first thing we noticed it was a bit pricier than normal for standard items. This region is well known for its fresh seafood caught daily. The sardines here are usually about 2 euros for a stick cooked on the outside boat wood fire barbeque. Here they were 5 euros but well worth the extra money, they were big and juicy and well seasoned, the perfect accompaniment to a squeeze of lemon and cerveza. Delicious. Our next dish was Huevos Rotos con jamon, a favourite of mine and always ordered to compare restaurants against each other. Our last dish was the fried adobo, seasoned fish fillet pieces similar to chicken nuggets but they were great. We later found out that the fish is marinated in lemon and vinegar before cooking. YUMMM. After lunch we headed to a well known icecream parlour which has been around for at least 60 years, Heladeria Lauri on Calle Bolivia, Pedregalejo. I got the Lemon and Chocolate flavours and ended up trying all they had to offer. Vowed to get the coconut the next time we were there. Dinner on Tuesday was another El Palo Playa restaurant called Tintero II. Its at the end of the beach restaurants heading to the east. We were a bigger group which was good as it meant we could order more! Normally this restaurant makes the food and shouts out the food as it comes out of the kitchen, you then need to grab it from the waiter. As it was a quiet evening we were given menus. We ordered the adobo, whole calamari grilled, plate of chips, fried cod, razor clams, prawns with garlic chilli and oil, fried anchovies or sardines (cant remember). We ate it all!
The following day after school, we drove down Costa del Sol to Nerja. We didn't stop along the way but we got to see the numerous beaches and beach hotels that make the Costa del Sol famous for tourists from all over the world. I cannot say the hotels are modern or 5 star but there are certainly many of them and most are aged. It felt like we were driving through Florida back in the 70s. Nerja on the other hand was really beautiful. We found parking under the Balcon de Europa and walked to the cliff face lookout. Even though it is low season there were loads of tourists but it wasn't disturbing to us. In the peak of Summer I would hate it - I just know it. Heaps of restaurants and tourist shops, we managed to find probably the nicest restaurant. We picked it from the lookout point and managed to spot its green umbrellas after walking into at least three other restaurants. We sat on the balcony edge and overlooked Nerja's east beach. It was an Italian restaurant and we ordered a mushroom risotto and bruschetta. Both were delicious. The restaurant was called Antica Roma. We then went down to the same beach we were overlooking and lay in the sun. I studied for my Spanish exam (it was on Friday and yes I passed!) and people watched. The water was not nearly as cold as the water in Malaga. We drove back to Malaga on the freeway and it only took us 45 min compared to two hours on the coastal highway.
Thursday breakfast was at home, i made myself my standard Emo's special breakfast. A piece of toast, runny egg, melted cheese.... and a glass of orange juice. Lunch was at a new place we decided to try, known for the fresh burgers, salads and smoothies we made our way there and didn't wait for a table as our friend was able to get there earlier. People wait all night for a table at this place so we had to try it. La Galerna was the name. We shared a salad and toast. Perfect as it was finally something that was not fried! Thursday night for me was studying... I think I made myself a Emo special...
Friday after my exam was over we went to our local Mandela for a quick sandwich. I got one of the Tostas, which was slathered in duck liver pate, goats cheese and caramelized onion. It was really good. Another friend arrived from Sevilla that day so we were saving ourselves for dinner. We got to Tapeo Cervantes in Malaga city about 8pm. Lucky as all the tables were reserved but we managed to get one of them. The place is tiny and fits probably 20 people at once. The food is devine. I loved everything we ordered... The salmon special, fried prawns (honey dressing), tortilla de patata, the cod, the meatballs, croquettes, flamenquine and duck special. It sounds like a lot for three but they are all medium portions so perfect to share and get one or two bites. It was cheap too, we paid about 20 euros per person. A bit more expensive that our local places but this was well prepared and a really nice dinner out. We then made our way to Centro de Arte Flamenco - Kelipe for a Flamenco show. The place is rustic, tradition and the way it should be. Entry is $18 euros (I paid $12 with my student card) and you get a drink included in that price. The show is traditional and was recommend by my cultural teacher at school. The group consisted of 5 people - watch a clip on their website to see what I mean. http://www.kelipe.net/ so so good. Not super touristy in that its a small crowd and the performance is very intimate.
The next day we went to our local Mandala for a slow breakfast and headed by car to Tarifa down the Costa de la Luz towards Tarifa. Tarifa is the closest point in Europe to Africa. We decided to take the coastal road down through Marbella (still in Coasta del Sol). We drove through but funnily kept missing the turn offs to Marbella and ended up in a town just outside it. It was fine though we needed to stop and have a beach siesta so that is what we did. The black sandy beaches here are great and even better because there aren't that many tourists this time of year. We found parking straight away and sat ourselves down on a pretty secluded beach. Continuing on towards Tarifa we passed the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. We told there was not much to see there aside from Monkeys and fast food chains so we decided not to stop and waste time. Tarifa was beautiful, white sandy beaches and the start of Costa de la Luz. The wind was phenomenal and could nearly blow me away if I let it. Thousands of kite surfers lined the shore. Heaven for a kite surfer it should be called. Just amazing to stand on the shoreline - look out to the water and see Africa. A must visit place.
After this we decided to take the tollway home and get back so we could rest up before dinner. We ended up meeting up again for more food. Back to Miguelito El Cariñoso in El Palo to enjoy the paella that we had heard so much about it. So we ordered a seafood paella, more adobo, sardines "espeto", a mixed salad (that came with tuna). We ended the evening with ice-cream from Heladaria Lauri again. YUMMM.
Sunday breakfast was at La Galerna, I ordered the Tasmania smoothie and a french omelette. So good. Spent the day at the beach and then headed to the city for more tapas at Casa Lola. We tried two pinchox (Anchovy with fresh cheese and tomato, and grilled prawns on spicy mayonnaise) and their version of the club sandwich... complete with runny quail egg! As it was World Tourist Day I then explored the city by visiting the Picasso Museum and collections (Picasso grew up in Malaga! Fun fact), Teatro Romano and the massive grounds of the Alcazaba. See my instagram for pictures of it @shahiyaeman.
I have two more days in Malaga and I am really unsure if I want to leave... Must run off to dinner in the Centro Historico....
