Málaga is a cute little city and in hindsight, we should have stayed there for more time… perhaps on arrival. It has the history and charm of Sevilla and Granada, but with less busyness, bustle and tourist hounding.
The food in Málaga was also pretty darn good, with plenty of European style outdoor coffee shops. In the old town, we saw no Western chains but instead a fair number of Italian restaurants and tapas bars.
Málaga is one of the oldest cities in the world (770BC) and its name has slightly fluxed and changed to reflect which ruling culture was in control of the area at the time. To the Phoenicians, the city was known as Malaka. To the Romans it was Malaca. The Arabs called it Mālaqah and ruled for 800 years until the Reconquista when the Spanish took back the city and changed the name to Málaga.
This is the second European Capital of Culture contender we’ve encountered in our travels, with the first being Newcastle. The city is full of museums, galleries, sculptures and architecture. And, if you are a Picasso enthusiast, this is both his birthplace and home of the Museo Picasso, which houses a large collection of his work donated to the museum by his family.
Our stay in Málaga was too short, as such we were limited to what was within the immediate vicinity of our hotel.
