Lazy Day in Malaga, Spain

Located on the Mediterranean Sea in the southern part of Spain, Malaga is a seaside resort town offering some of Europe’s finest beaches. It is also home to some impressive palaces.

Entering the port…

Looks like he’s pulling a toy boat!

Once again, we decided to do the Hop On, Hop Off bus. The cruise terminal was very nice and spotless.

Welcome to Malaga!

We took the shuttle bus into town. Once again we started with a tour of lovely beaches…

A pretty Christmas tree in front of this impressive building. We were looking for the bus stop at this point.

We found the information office with the help of this bold sign. Finding the bus stop was a little trickier, but we were successful.

This clock tower was part of City Hall.

Lots of high rises with views of the sea…

The architecture was really nice…

Welcome to the Hotel California…

Beautiful homes…

And then we arrived at the Castillo de Gibralfaro. The fortress dates back to the 10th century and was built on a former Phoenician enclosure and lighthouse. Rather than do what we did yesterday, where we thought we would visit the castle on the second go around, we decided to hop off and explore it first.

We got a map, but still couldn’t figure out where the castle was…

So we wandered along…

And found this cool tree near the washrooms…

Little guardhouses…

Aha! The Interpretation Centre…was all in Spanish, so we were no farther ahead. By now we had come to the conclusion that this was a fort and not the castle. The fort was on top of the hill and the castle appeared to be below.

But there were great views!

The walkway between the walls where they could patrol to watch for any invaders.

 We could see the cathedral in the distance and decided to make that our next stop when we got back on the bus.

The traffic circle below where we had started our tour in the morning…

Nope, definitely no castle here no matter how hard Jim looked.

We did a thorough walk around…up the stairs, and down the stairs.

The bullfighting ring...

It was very windy!

And then we waited and waited for the bus. By the time we finally got on, we had had about enough of touring for another day. These trees were abundant in the city. No lack of delicious oranges.

The cathedral is nicknamed La Manquita which means one-armed lady. They ran out of funds before a second tower could be built, and it ended up with only one. The actual name is the Cathedral of Incarnation. The choir area features fine carvings of saints, along with a Gothic altar and a statue of the Virgin Mary that was presented to the city by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella after the city was recaptured from the Moors. At this point we decided that, although it was probably very nice, we were going to pass on it.Which also explains why it's good that we take tours instead of just wandering on our own!

Segways! We had read that you could do a segway tour, a fun way to see the city.

Another very clean and modern city. We didn’t do it justice, but right about now we were toured out and looking forward to a sea day tomorrow!

Our next stop is Funchal, Madeira, which is part of Portugal...