April 22-23, 2010 -- Frigiliana and Malaga

On Thursday we relaxed around Frigiliana, attending the market in the morning before having coffee in the plaza. We pretended we were Spanairds and had a couple of cups of cafe con leche as we watched the people at the market. We bought luscious local produce: avocadoes, peppers, plump moscatel raisins, figs, mangoes, salted almonds, tasty tomatoes, and fresh asparagus. Later we feasted on some of those treats.

Today, Friday, we visited Malaga, taking the bus from Nerja, which was a very wise decision -- no getting lost and no parking issues. Despite what travel guide Rick Steves says, Malaga is a lovely city with a long, beautiful beach, impressive harbour and gorgeous mid-city park. It claims to be the sixth largest Spanish city and second largest Andalusian city after Sevilla, but it is very compact and the downtown area is fairly small.

We did a city tour first, which is our usual practice, then visited the Moorish fortress and palace, the Alcazaba. It is a marvellous defensive structure dominating the city but providing a sense of calm and serenity that the royalty were able to achieve in their palaces, with running water and fountains, extensive gardens, trellised courtyards and cool, airy rooms. The juxtaposition of massive defensive structures enclosing this luxurious setting is quite jarring.

Right beside the Alcazaba is a recently discovered Roman amphitheatre, now being incorporated into Malaga life as a venue for performances. Such a great idea to use a 2000 year old theatre for the same purpose for which it was built.

We also visited the Picasso Museum (which, unfortunately, was partially closed), Picasso's home, a Salvador Dali exhibit, and an extensive retrospective of a Czech modernist painter, Frantisek Kupka. It was a full, but very interesting, day.

Back on the bus -- a treat for Duane, the usual chauffeur -- and off to Nerja and Frigiliana for another of Duane's gorgeous dinners.

April 21, 2010 -- Costa Tropical -- the Road to Almeria

Today we travelled east to Almeria on the Autovia de Mediter- raneneo, a highway designed to partially smooth out the twists and turns made necessary by geography.

On the trip from Nerja to Almeria along the Costa Tropical we saw some amazing road building; we crossed 15 viaductos (bridges) totalling 4628 meters in length and travelled through 12 tunels (tunnels) totalling 7434 meters. The longest tunnel was 2170 meters. The Autovia is not fully completed so we also careened through quite a few miles of winding secondary road.

We passed through miles and miles of greenhouses, covering tens of thousands of acres of land. Many were idle, but we suspect that they are used season- ally to produce fruit, vege- tables and perhaps flowers for northern European tables during the winter months. These plastic-covered greenhouses totally dominate the landscape and are not at all attractive.

Almeria is a seaside city (one can ferry from here to Morroc- co) dominated by the Moorish Alacazaba (fortress). It is very impressive and extensive -- the biggest Moorish fortress in Europe. In this city even the cathedral looks like a fort, a result of too many Berber pirate deprecations.

Almeria is off the beaten tourist track, so every- thing is in Spanish and they don't seem to feel the need to sign their streets. We spent a (semi) pleasant half hour trying to leave the city. One cannot really get lost because the city is built on a slope which ends up in the Mediterranean, so one can get one's bearings quite easily. However, as we didn't want to go to the Mediterranean, we found it a little challenging.

On the way home we decided to eat out and stopped a a nice little town, Calahonda. It was 7:15 pm and the restaurants and bars were closed and/or were not prepared to serve dinner or tapas as it was too early. At one place we were told that the cook would not return for an hour. Others were closed until 8:30. So we returned to Frigiliana and dined on delicious leftovers from last night.