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

I’m still a week behind in writing up my posts, which means unbelievably it has been a week since we left Málaga. More unbelievable still was how quickly our first month of travel passed. 

Before writing about where we got to next, thought I’d pause for a moment to share some final thoughts on Málaga. 

As intended, it was a great place to kick our year off. Although the January blues weren’t likely to appear for us this year, the Costa del Sol sunshine was a wonderful tonic (except when we were lugging all our bags through the streets on arrival, still dressed in our UK/arctic explorer attire!). If you need a bit of winter sun just a couple of hours from the UK, it is definitely the place to go.

I was really surprised by how much there was to see and do. Despite our 4 weeks there, there were still several things on our to-do list when we left. I guess we will just have to make a return visit sometime – maybe once we’ve bought that cave house.

It’s pretty ironic that for such a sunny spot, Málaga has a lot of rainy day activities. I think it would be a great place to come as family or groups of friends, as there is something for everyone. There are the typical historic and modern art museums and churches, but also some surprises in the form of the interactive music museum, the video game museum and wine museum.

On the whole it is easy to get around the historic centre. There were definitely times we were caught off-guard coming out of some of the labyrinthean alleys in a completely different orientation than we expected. All part of the charm though, and you are never far from where you want to be. If you happen to bump into one of the “street performers” dressed in off-brand cartoon costumes (think strung out Mickey Mouse) though, it does have a bit of a horror film feel!

As you’ll have seen from the various posts, there is plenty to do outside of the city, particularly for nature lovers/hikers. But if you need to take it easy, which we definitely needed from time to time, there are plenty of spots for that. There is a serious abundance of bars and restaurants in the centre, and the marina is the perfect place for a coffee or cocktail in the sun. All while keeping an eye out for parakeets and sizing up the megayacht currently berthed there (yes, apparently there is something larger than a superyacht!).

We were lucky enough to catch the end of the festive season during our first week, but sadly we will be missing out on the Málaga Carnival (think Spanish Mardi Gras). The decorations were already going up as we departed. We have plenty else to look forward to though!

Before leaving Spain altogether, we had one more stop to make. As we would be flying out of Madrid airport, we took the opportunity to have a couple of nights in the capital. 

With the benefit of mid-week timing, we were able to take advantage of the evening free entry to the major art galleries, Del Prado and Reina Sofia. The Prado is such a scale, you could probably spend the best part of a day there, so the two free hours flew by (especially taking queuing time into account – unsurprisingly, free hours are popular!).  

We had fuelled ourselves up at the Mercado de San Miguel, a covered market originally built in 1916 that is now home to a number of food and drink eateries. I’ll be honest, for someone who enjoys food and drink as much as I do, I don’t always enjoy food markets. Or more specifically, I don’t enjoy the throngs of people who also like food and drink. It can be pretty dangerous mixing this with being in an unfamiliar place, and my hunger gauge ticking dangerously towards empty.

One of the last times we were in such a situation was in Chiang Mai, Thailand, famed for its night markets. Narrow pavements and flaming heat from the cooking pans were already getting to me when someone proceeded to run over my foot with a wheelchair. I’m still impressed I managed to maintain some self control and mumble “it’s okay” as the lady pushing the chair apologised, rather than screaming the profanities that were coursing through my head.

Happily Mercado de San Miguel was a more sedate experience (I can’t imagine it would be the same at a weekend or in summer), and we spent a pleasant hour or so trying different dishes.

When it came to dinner, after the hours standing in the Prado, we rested our backsides in a colourful taberna. We tried, and enjoyed, the Madrid speciality of stewed tripe and entrails – trust me, it tastes better than it sounds! This was washed down by a stop at a craft beer bar. As some of the other patrons were enquiring what the live Instagram follower counter behind the bar was, there was a moment of perfect comic timing where the counter started whirring…to reveal that someone had unfollowed the bar. Pride comes before a fall, I guess!

Unfortunately not all our food and drink choices were as good. I learnt a lesson about thoroughly reviewing websites and menus before venturing in somewhere, not just being led by Google reviews. As soon as we arrived in one well reviewed “taberna” and were being led to our table, we got the sense we had misjudged what we thought would be a cosy, casual supper. Indeed the prices on the menu confirmed what the well dressed waiters and starched table cloths hinted at, with the cheapest main coming in at about €25, without sides.

Unfortunately we had been led right to the back end of an upstairs room so a sly escape wasn’t an option! The food we had was perfectly fine, but we’ve had much nicer meals already this year for less. This was quite a well established restaurant, so I think we were paying more for the name and ambience than the food. Will just chalk it up to experience, and I have already come up with a serviceable excuse to hold in reserve should we ever need to make a retreat from a restaurant in future (and no, it doesn’t involve the aforementioned screaming profanities).

I am, however, happy to recommend the hotel we stayed at, the Oriente Palace Apartments should you find yourself in Madrid. Despite the modest room rate, our room was huge, and so elegant, we were even neighbours with the Spanish Royals – the Royal Palace was just across a courtyard. Although the Royal family don’t live there permanently, there was a little bit of fanfare the next morning with King Felipe paying a visit to town. 

We also had time to attempt to visit the Temple of Debod, a temple that was dismantled and transported from its original site in Egypt to Madrid after a Unesco call for assistance. Due to preservation requirements it can only be visited 10 people at a time though, and with a hardstop in place we had to abandon our position in line (no doubt to the joy of those behind).

We had decided to do something we had never done before in our 11 years together, and joined a free walking tour. Ricki and I are great at exploring / wandering aimlessly, but given our short time in Madrid, wanted a quick way to get a bit more context to our sightseeing. Our guide was really engaging, led us to some spots we hadn’t found ourselves, and I got a much better insight to the politics, history and culture of both Madrid and Spain.

For now though, our time in Spain is over, the first country on our travels ticked off already! As much as we have loved Andalucía and Madrid though, we’re excited for somewhere new!