Thursday 14th February 2008

The bus for Malaga left Orgiva at 08:30, so it was an early start for the 20 minute walk into the town. It was a three and a half hour journey to Malaga, the first part of which was through the Alpajuras and, although rather windy causing problems for some of the more sensitive locals (they provided sick bags!) it was very pretty. The journey along the coast was not as interesting – a succession of resorts with high-rise, densely packed apartment blocks. We arrived in Malaga at 12:00 and after obtaining a map, we set off on a sightseeing tour of the city. The old town was interesting but was not as well preserved as some others that we have seen. They are obviously attempting now to preserve the historical buildings even when they want to redevelop areas of the centre. We passed an example of this – the facade of a huge building was set on props with scaffolding to support it but the rest of the building had been demolished (see photos). Following two of the town trails shown on the map, we stopped off for an excellent lunch in a side street by the Episcopal Palace. I had the local speciality of Ox Tail Stew, which was very tasty. We visited the impressive cathedral and then walked on through a park to the Malaga Bullring. The building was closed but we walked around the outside and admired the statue to a famous toreador.
Walking back to the bus station we then caught the airport bus and arrived in plenty of time for our flight. After an appalling and very expensive pasta and tomato sauce (how can they make such a mess of such a simple dish?), I vowed never to eat in an airport restaurant again.
The flight left on time and arrived in Bristol 10 minutes early. We were very grateful to our friends Ann and Nick who were there to meet us at such a late hour and it was good to catch up with their news on the way back. We arrived to a lovely warm house (Ann had put on the heating for us) and after a very short time we fell into bed and slept soundly.
Not a very romantic St. Valentine's Day but we were home safe and sound.
Photos: Preserved facade in Malaga; Toreador monument outside the Malaga bullring.