Malaga - 1st and 2nd January 2010

Saturday 1st January 2010
Malaga
After twelve very comfortable nights at Sotogrande we dragged ourselves away – it was time we left as the ghosts of Christmas and family were beginning to haunt us and we were starting to feel ‘alone’ and needed to do something again. So we drove to Malaga in bright sunshine and booked into a hotel right underneath the cathedral and next door to the Picasso museum. Vivi who has never had a days’ illness in her life has finally succumbed to some coldy fluey thing (absolutely no question of a hangover unlike that vodka swilling Norfolk lot) so she has taken to her bed whilst I did the tour of the city in the hope that tomorrow she will be well enough to do it with me again! Despite what one might think of Malaga having only passed through the airport, it is a most remarkable and beautiful town and there is a lot to see.
The Roman theatre which is in the process of being uncovered, the Alcazaba and the castle Gibralfaro and the cathedral are stunning. The Picasso museum – most pictures/sculptures donated by his ‘daughter in law’ and grandson was a must see. His early drawings are perfection and the later modern stuff fascinating when you have the time to really look at them Every time you think you see an image your eye moves and it slips away only to be something else – he really was very clever!! That’s enough pretentious waffle we enjoyed the first two rooms then the rest was his modern stuff and try as we might – stand on heads, lie down on a bench nothing seemed to look close to the simple description like ‘woman in red dress’.
In the evening we had a rather disappointing dish of steamed moules – they were cold in what looked like the washing up water and the plates so greasy and dirty that we left and then found a tapas bar and for the first time ever actually had two stunningly good tapas which quite restored our confidence in Spanish cooking.
Tomorrow if Vivi is feeling up to it we’ll head north up the coast in search of a port with a ferry which will take us to Italy, but this may take quite a long time!