from sun to snow and back to sun again – málaga, spain

after jamaica, i flew DIRECT! on virgin-atlantic-the-most-kickass-airline-evAR back to london. the UK is my least favorite part of europe with its crap weather and crappier puritan values (and one of the most expensive places for food and wine, adding insult to injury). alas, i was house-sitting for friends which meant free rent for two weeks.

when i say that the weather is crap, i mean it. this is what i woke up to on easter sunday:

friend’s backyard in cambridge , UK– boo!

after a chilly, rainy, hail-y and generally craptastic fortnight in cambridge, i was back to suntanning on the beach in málaga, in the south of spain.

malagueta beach in málaga, spain — hurray!

málaga (pronounce MAH-la-ga) reminds me of other cities with beaches, like nice in france or even a mini-barcelona without the gaudi influence. the people are friendly and the food is awesome! the restaurants on the beach turn out deliciously charred sardines grilled on a stick, an assortment of fried local seafood called, “fritura malagueña” and all manner of tapas.

málaga is the birthplace of picasso (and also antonio banderas). the newly renovated picasso museum here is a must-see. it contains twelve rooms of his art which amounts to something like 155 works and each one is worthy of contemplation. it’s amazing to see the body of an artist’s work from a young age to his death. the stuff picasso was creating right before he died at the age of 92 still looks fresh and full of energy. there’s no doubt in my mind that the man was a genius.

málaga, like every other city in europe, has the obligatory castle. i’m kind of growing weary of castles but i feel like i have to visit each one just in case there’s something there i might miss. at the very least, they’re high up so i have some nice views of the city. one unique part of malaga’s castillo gilbralfaro is a fortification built by the moors called the alcazaba (from the arabic word al-casbah for “fortification”). this was the palace fortress of málaga’s muslim governors back in the day before the spanish inquisition got rid of all the non-christians. the alcazaba is more interesting than the castle but you might as well go to both of them because it’s a long hike to get up there and the combined ticket is like 3 euros.

you can see pho-tos of the alcazaba, castle and more in málaga on my flickr site.