Malaga

I left Monte Gordo a week ago and went to Malaga which may or may not have had much to recommend it. I arrived on Saturday feeling very hot and bothered and drove past my hotel twice before realising it was there, which may give you some idea of the size and quality of it. After checking in I decided that I would just have dinner and then head to bed which I did. The next day I woke up with a very nasty head cold/sinusitis and felt pretty miserable. I tried to get moving by catching the Malaga Tour bus but the heat on top of the temperature I already had made it pretty awful so I went back to bed for a couple of days and missed most of Malaga. On the day before I was due to leave I eventually got up and headed to the beach. I asked the man on reception which bus to catch to get there and he told me I could walk it - it was only 15 minute walk but I simply couldn't be bothered so I caught the number 11 to El Palo beach. It turns out that El Palo is not the best beach in Malaga (in fact it is so far from being the best beach in Malaga it was hard to accept the tourist blurb about Malaga being famous for its beaches) so I thought I would walk back to the main beach - Malagueta to see if that was any better. When I started out, I didn't realise it was about 7 kilometres back and that I would have been quicker walking directly from my hotel to Malagueta but it was a learning experience. As I walked along the promenade, I saw many beach barbecues set up opposite beachfront restaurants. They looked like little dinghys on a stand in front of a small open sided shed - no walls just palm tree leaf roofs on stalks, each one with its own icecream-type fridge. The dinghys were actually metal or concrete and filled with sand on which was placed the fire. They all looked pretty grubby and despite it being close to midday, not one of the restaurants was actually open.

Another thing I noticed that surprised me was the number of people who took their exercise really seriously in Malaga. Lots of people were out running (not sure how they managed this in the heat - I was just walking and it nearly did me in). I passed a free outdoor gym area on a rotunda like Oriental Bay, where you could do your 'cross training' or use the rowing machine or weights machine looking out over the sea. If it wasn't so hot, it would have been a great idea but all the equipment was in use so maybe once you become acclimatised to this heat, you can actually do these things.

I eventually (1.5hrs later) got to the main beach and found a cafe open. It was a relief to sit in the shade with a bottle of water, a huge coke on ice and a tortilla de patatas. Having revived myself somewhat, I organised a sunlounger with umbrella and spent the afternoon reading and swimming. The water was lovely but the sun's heat made sunbathing impossible.

I thought that I would walk back to the hotel since I had been told it was only a 15 minute walk but I must have taken the long route because it took me 45 minutes. I did enjoy the gardens that I walked through though - particularly enjoyed the shade provided by large trees.

Overall impression of Malaga - old, past it's best tourist centre. Not a highlight of the trip but that may be partly tinged by the fact that I wasn't feeling great.