Malaga in March: Day 1

We booked a week in Malaga for the first few days of March because careful research had indicated that it offered the highest likelihood of good weather without leaving mainland Europe. It was therefore with some disappointment that the day before departure I found myself digging out cagoules from the back of the spare wardrobe and manual vacuum packing everything into waterproof ziplock Ikea plastic bags to put into my non waterproof but trusty Ikea trolley suitcase. The forecast was for rain, the sort of rain we had seen in Siracusa in October,  that is truckloads of it thrown down from the sky onto a city whose architects had planned for sun and light showers. Andalucia boasts 300 days of sun a year and a very very small voice in my ear had been pointing out for some time that this means it isn’t sunny for 52 days a year and does that mean it rains those 52 days, which actually is nearly two months if you think about it? As a matter of fact, our wet week in Malaga coincided with the arrival of Burian, the beast from the east,  there was snow on the beaches of San Sebastian in northern Spain for the first time in thirty years, Cadiz was battered by wind and storms and the weather man on the Spanish TV could hardly contain his glee at the litres of accumulated rainfall for agriculture and summer reserves.

Malaga airport is big, well, at least compared to the airports we’ve been whizzing through lately – Catania, Bari, Brindisi and it seems a fair trek following the llegadas and treni signs , while my body temperature gradually catches up with the fact it is about plus 16 degrees centigrade and not below zero. We get tickets  for the Cercanias network, that is the local Malaga network, not the national Renfe one, and have just  5 minutes to wait for the train into Malaga.

We go up the steps from the underground station to be confronted by our first Malaga rain and about thirty other people shrinking in front of the sliding doors also observing their first Malaga rain. The station to accommodation journey is always bewildering for some reason. We always check the route on Google Maps and Street view but somehow when we actually arrive my internal compass is whizzing round in circles and it seems difficult to make out where we are and where we’re going, yet 30 minutes later when we come back out of the apartment and for the rest of our stay I will never get lost.

Our hosts are extremely friendly, clearly worried about the dreadful weather in a city which promises 300 days of sunshine per year, and possibly concerned whether this could put us in such a bad mood as to affect their feedback. The apartment is exactly as it looked on the Airbnb website, white, clean, white modern, white with a touch of grey and electric blue. Very nice. 

We venture out for food armed with a list of tripadvisor recommendations but, as often happens are beguiled by the first Freiduria we find just down the road from the apartment, and decipher enough of the menu to order some freshly fried fish, delicious. 

It’s just drizzling so we continue on to the centre of Malaga. Today is 28th February “Fiesta de Andalucia” so the shops are all closed but there are quite a few people around braving the rain which has started again. We get into the damp queue for the Museo Picasso which is free because it’s Fiesta de Andalucia, the rain is a bit invasive especially from neighbouring umbrellas but after about twenty minutes we’re edging our way up the stairs in the dry. The museum is well worth a visit, Picasso is not our favourite artist but there’s an interesting video and from looking at the paintings in the exhibition we learn something about his works.

Next stop, chocolate with churros, 

which we haven’t tried before, at Casa Aranda, a bar with different rooms which takes up most of a side street. Malaga churros are called tejeringos. The hot chocolate and tejeringos are undoubtedly warming but we aren’t that enthusiastic and carry on to Antigua Casa de Guardia the “bodega y taberna mas solera de Malaga”

where you can try as many of the local wines as you like, standing at the bar. The barmen write your bill using chalk on the bartop so you can be sure to keep up with it. 

Pajarete warms us more satisfactorily than the hot chocolate and we scurry back through the damp streets towards the dry warmth of the air-conditioning inverter in the apartment.