Category: Malaga

We started to watch from our balcony, here is a short video:

Cannot even describe the experience.

The city is in full swing of preparations for Semana Santa, Holy Week, a tradition that is over 500 year old. Drapes are covering balconies of houses that are on the routes of the processions, streets are cleaned, and in more than 40 brotherhood houses the thrones are prepared. These are so heavy that they will need 200 men to carry them, stepping in unison. Most of the statues are replicas, the originals were burned or destroyed during the Spanish civil war. It starts tomorrow on Palm Sunday. 

We are still waiting for our bodies to fully arrive, early afternoons we still get a little tired, and  Krisztina is struggling with a strange cough she most likely picked up on the plane. One of the best thing about travel is that you are arriving to a completely unfamiliar place and after a few days it slowly becomes yours, the regular sounds from church bells, the various noises of the nearby streets, the pigeons, the local shops, the taste of food, the overall unrelenting rhythms of life. Two Spanish words we learned first were Salida and Entrada. Easy and useful. The first spaniard who smiled at us was a guy who almost ran us over, he smiled when he saw Krisztina do quite a big jump, away from his speeding moped. We were walking on a residential street, outside of the tourist area, just to get some local vibe. The only unpleasant experience so far was the Chinese woman on the beach who very aggressively tried to force a foot massage on Krisztina repeatedly on multiple days. We go to the shore every day, it is so relaxing just to sit in the sand listening to the waves. Today we also visited the house where Picasso was born. Now it makes sense, that famous drawing of a dove as a symbol of peace is very likely coming from his childhood.

We are not slacking, the last two days we walked around 15k steps, in this mostly flat city. Because of Krisztina chronic bus avoidance or rather insatiable appetite for walking, an extra effort was needed to visit the Moorish palace and the fortress on the steep hill. Even in the old town not much left to indicate that this is an ancient city founded by the Phoenicians, other than a small roman theater and the very confusing street layout, so we were truly looking forward to see Alcazaba castle and Gibralfaro citadel, built around 11th century by the muslim rulers. What an incredible place, our reward was not just the view from there, but architectural beauty, intricate designs I never seen before and inside gardens with amazing sweet fragrance of blooming orange trees. 

We could not wait longer to find the seashore. Krisztina never needs gps to find the way to any type of water, we slowly walked from the old town through mazes of narrow streets, plazas and parks full of tropical plants until we arrived to the beach of the Mediterranean sea, surrounded by palm trees. Sunshine, blue skies, beach side cafes and cocktail houses. Just great vibe, exactly what we needed to deal with the remaining jet lag. Interestingly there are only a few seagulls flying around, but pigeons are everywhere in the city. And noisy parrots hiding on palm trees.