Málaga – the Spanish Coastal Resort

The popular holiday port of Málaga (population 600,000) is less than 150km from Gibraltar and 600km down the coast from Valencia (population 840,000), the coastal city which was hit so hard by disastrous killer floods in late October 2024. It was another place I visited during my European visit in 2024. I’d only stayed in Málaga once before, a very brief stopover in 1992 when I was heading down to Gibraltar and then on to Tarifa from where I took the ferry across to Tangier in Morocco. I was working on the very first edition of Lonely Planet’s Mediterranean Europe guide, that first edition also ventured out of Europe to North Africa. In 2007 Maureen and I didn’t even pause in Málaga as we drove south to Tarifa and again took the ferry to Africa, on that occasion we were driving in the wonderful Plymouth-Banjul challenge in an elderly Mitsubishi Colt.

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▲ This time we had plenty of time to explore the beach vacation escape with its collection of beachside chiringuito eating places along La Malagueta beach. Sardines are the real chiringuito speciality.

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▲ Tatra 87

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South of the centre the Museo Automovilistico, houses a fairly extensive gathering mixing cars with fashion, it’s interesting although rather more glitz and glamour than a serious collection. The John Lennon psychedelic Rolls-Royce is just a replica, but I do like the 1947 example of the very fine old Czech Tatra 87. Built between 1936 and 1950 this very eccentric limousine features a V8 engine hung way out beyond the back axle. Hardly surprisingly this could lead to some very interesting handling although Tatra enthusiasts suggests this Hagerty account of rolling one over is rather contrived. Click here for another Tatra 87 account which insists they are not so dangerous. One motoring journalist noted that driving a Tatra 87 gave you ‘the uneasy exhilaration which may be got from shampooing a lion.’

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◄ I’m not a real Picasso enthusiast, but Boy with a Shovel from 1971 could happily hang on my wall.

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Malaga has no shortage of museums, in particular the Museo Picasso Malaga. He was born here and the museum is popular enough to make booking advance tickets a good idea. In fact the museum was not  overwhelmingly crowded and it does a very good account of the multiplicity of styles he followed through his life, right up to the end, he was still churning them out at the age of 91. My 2024 European summer travels also took me to Antibes which has the Antibes Picasso Musuem.

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The museum featured a temporary photo exhibit by Joel Meyerowitz who was starting to make a name for himself as a street photographer in New York in the 1960s.

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He decided to spend a year travelling around Europe and chasing street photographs there. So he took a ship to London, started in Kensington, went to Cornwall, then all round England and Ireland, on across Europe, dipped in to Morocco and finally touched on Turkey as well before ending up in Naples at the end of his 1966-67 circuit and taking another ship back to New York. His ‘idea’ was that he’d photograph from a moving car, these would be snatches of life, taken on the run. Although he did pause in Paris for awhile and had a long spell in Malaga. There are over 200 photographs in the exhibit and remarkably little explanation about any of them. I left musing that I should research him further

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▲ The Pompidou Centre is topped by this Rubik’s Cube, it looks good at night, but underneath it the entrance can be hard to find. The museum itself, an offshoot of the Pompidou Centre in Paris, is all subterranean and sort of interesting, but only sort of. On the other hand the Museo Carmen Thyssen is definitely interesting and features collections from assorted eras of art in Málaga. Everybody in Málaga seems to be having a very good time, don’t they?

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▲  Even the Atarazanas market is artistic with this nautical stained glass window at one end of the market building. On the other hand it didn’t feel like a particularly busy market, at 8 am it seemed to be barely in action, lots of stalls were still unpacking and setting up

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◄  The big Museo Málaga is in the classy former Customs Building. There’s a floor of ancient history, the Phoenicians and other eras. Including a fascinating ancient tomb site and the bronze helmet discovered in that grave. There are also a couple of wonderful mosaics found at Malaga Roman villas and on the lower floor Málaga art. This is certainly a city that inspired painters?

▲ The Málaga bullring, the Plaza de toros de La Malagueta. The neo-Mudéjar style bullring opened in 1876 and you can look down into the bullring, with La Malagueta beach behind it, from Gibralfaro Castle.

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The Museo Málaga is almost adjacent to the Alcazabar with its fine Roman Theatre. From the theatre you can climb up into the Alcazabar itself and eventually get to the Mirador Bar at the top for sundowners with a view. Or keep on climbing to the Gibralfaro Castle at the very top – there are good views down over the coast to distract you as you climb – including the bullring.

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▲  Street art in Málaga comes under the umbrella of MAUS – Málaga Arte Urbano en el SoHo – this chameleon is by noted Belgian street artist ROA.

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◄  Close to the waterfront this collection of animals tumbling down the side of a building are also by ROA.

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Finally we ventured into the magnificent Catedral de Málaga.  The cathedral was built on the remains of a mosque and features an ‘unbalanced’ looking façade with a single tower.  A possible explanation for the funds running out before the second tower was completed is because they were diverted to fight assorted 19th-century revolutionary movements in Latin America. There were quite a few possible explanations for the money running low and in fact they built a hell of a lot before the bank account did start to dwindle. This is a very big, very fancy cathedral.

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◄ There is an awful lot of art arrayed around the cathedral and I’m intrigued by the fact that it not only comes from long ago, but also from quite recently. Like this Virgin of Bethlehem by Francisco Pinto Barrequero, which looks exactly like many other Madonna and child, Virgin Mary with baby, but she also looks very contemporary.