A Place Both Wonderful and Strange – Tash & Ricki's Career Break Travels

This is the question that has come up when we’ve started explaining our plans for the year. Málaga is not as championed as the likes of Barcelona or Madrid. Until I found out more about it, I myself envisioned something like Benidorm, a Blackpool of Andalucía. 

At some point in my life, I have also made a weird mental association of Málaga with Peperami. I am still trying to work that one out, although perhaps the depths of my brain are best left unexplored. ¹

In actual fact, Málaga is full of cultural and historic highlights. It is, after all, the birthplace of Pablo Picasso. Unsurprisingly it has a wealth of museums and galleries. Meanwhile, the historic center boasts the Alcazaba fortress and Gibralfaro Castle, showcasing Moorish influences. So plenty to keep these art and history lovers occupied for the next month!

The warm climate doesn’t hurt either, as Málaga is of course located in the Costa del Sol. It is so nice to be spending the first month of the year in sunshine, with average January temperatures of 8 – 17°. Our first days here were even warmer. I was able to don a shirt dress while the native Spaniards stayed wrapped up in jeans, sweaters, coats and woolies. I wonder how they would fare in Scotland…

Speaking of our home nation, a preference for short haul travel was a main driver for selecting Spain as our first destination. South America was the one continent we knew we wanted to focus on in our plans. However, we want to get back to Scotland at the start of March for a family wedding. The most sensible option seemed then to be to start in Europe instead.

This approach is already paying off for us. It will be advantageous to catch Spain and Italy in the off-season, with lower crowds, accommodation prices and avoiding any severe heatwaves. But it is also acting as a warm up exercise, not just literally, but also getting us into the swing of being away from home.

I’ve already mentioned the end of 2023 felt particularly busy, so it was a relief to know we didn’t have to do too much research before jetting off. Spain isn’t quite as intimidating as Columbia or Bolivia! As long as we had our flat sorted, bags packed and checked in for the flight, we were comfortable we could get to our rental apartment and figure out local customs as we went. Thankfully complacency didn’t get the better of us and our first few days have passed without issue. 

Admittedly there was some concern on the morning of our departure. The rental agency still hadn’t confirmed access arrangements for the flat by the time we touched down and we had to do a cursory hotel search to confirm back-up options were available. By the time we had got through passport control, claimed our lone hold bag from the baggage carousel and I had sat down with my first café bombon of the trip though, we were relieved to receive details via Whatsapp.

For much of this year, we will be staying in apartments booked via Airbnb and Booking.com. As well as giving us more space than hotel rooms, we can save money on meals by self catering. The option of a washing machine also, in theory, means we can reduce the amount of clothes we travel with. I’m sure I still have room for improvement on that front!

The first few days have been spent getting our bearings and setting ourselves up for Andalucían life. This has included a few walks around the historic centre, plenty of grocery shopping and signing up to a gym. 28 days seems like a long time to spend somewhere, but no doubt it will fly by. We are catching up on the planning we skipped pre-departure and the diary for January is starting to fill up. 

Our extended visit means we can make the most of any attractions offering free admission at certain times. Sunday afternoons look like they will be less lazy for us than in the UK!

One final reason for basing ourselves in Málaga is the availability of transport connections. There is cheap car hire and various rail routes, so I look forward to posting about various trips in the not too distant future!

1. In a bid to work out whether this association was due a reference in an advert, Ricki was concerned to find me watching a compilation of 1993 – 2019 Peperami adverts yesterday afternoon and wondered if I had already gone stir crazy.  ↩︎