Málaga

For as down as I felt checking into our resort roughly a week ago you would think I have some extra bounce in my step piling our luggage into the car to leave it behind. Nope. The place has kind of grown on me and I feel just as down this morning.

Nevertheless, time waits for no man and we need to make our way to Málaga in time to see a few sights, return our rental car, and catch the evening train back to Madrid. Roughly this time tomorrow we’ll be sitting in an airport waiting for our long flight home. Pobre tomate.

Our one schedule event is the Picasso Museum (no, you’re not back reading the Barcelona post). Picasso was born in Málaga so it is probably natural that there is a museum here dedicated to his work. It is smaller than the one in Barcelona (although the seem to have crammed in the same number of people) and more of the pieces are from later in his. It is nice to see a different side but, of the two, I found the Barcelona museum more enjoyable (wow, I really did just compare my experience walking through multimillion dollar buildings housing hundred of millions of dollars of art – I’ve become a bit of a douche).

With museum checked off the list, we spend some time just wandering through the streets of Málaga. It is one of the oldest continuously occupied cities in the world, having passed through rule by the Phonecians, Romans, Visigoths, Moors, and, finally, Christians. I’m not sure where I would have pulled them from, but I could definitely have spent a few more days here. There is a good feel to the place even though we only get to do drive bys of the Alcazaba, Roman ruins, plazas, and cathedral.

It is with a heavy heart that we find the perfect gift for Sam here (yes, better than “Monkey in Suit”), but realize there is just no way it will fit in our bags.

As our time comes to a close (not just the train we need to catch but, man, it gets friggin’ cold here once the sun goes down around 6 o’clock), we’re able to squeeze in one more great meal and a celebratory jug o’ juice. Spain, it has been an awesome four weeks.