Thursday 28 October
Our flight home was early evening, so we had a pretty much a full day to explore Málaga. We left our cases at the hotel and headed towards the cathedral. As we'd done most of the other cathedrals we'd come across, it seemed churlish to miss this one.
Málaga cathedral is relatively modern, being constructed between 1528 and 1782, although sited on the same area as medieval Moorish walls. It is a typical Renaissance cathedral with beautiful, lofty ceilings and tens of individual chapels.
Although I'm not into this style of architecture/decor, I did like the modern decoration of the altars.
We then headed to the Alcazabar. As per Granada and Seville, these are amazing buildings. I love the architecture, the tiles and the history.
Built in the 11th Century by the governing Muslims, it hosts three concentric walls which increasingly protect the interior. Its gardens were a delight, with small channels of water flowing down from one garden patio to another.
And this was a familiar style of archway and courtyard. Love it.
It also had a small tea shop complete with Mediterranean view.
130 m up the hill stands Castillo de Gibralfaro. It is connected to Alcazabar by a walled corridor, to protect its inhabitants from hostile fire whilst transmitting between the two. Gibralfaro was the original site of Málaga fortifications, being occupied from circa 770 BC. This latest castle was built in the 14th Century to protect the Alcazabar, and gained renown as being the most impregnable fortress on the Iberian peninsula.
Wonderful views down to the harbour.
I spied a lighthouse so off we went down to the harbour area. We didn't linger as we were running short on time but it is always nice to see one of these maritime lovelies.
We went back to the hotel, collected our luggage, then it was a simple train ride to the airport to catch our flight home. We hadn't accounted for a Spanish train strike. We bought our tickets, went down the platform and only then, after wondering why our train was late, did we start to google and discover the news. A sign before buying the tickets would have been helpful! Fortunately, whenever I travel, I always built in a wide margin for dodgy transport, and this time the hour extra was used standing on the station platform. A train eventually appeared and we all bundled on. We made the flight in comfortable time but it's not the most stress free way to catch a plane.
Flight home was smooth and we went from 25 deg C to a late October British cold, wet deluge in 2 hours. Welcome home!
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