Winding 180 miles along the southern coast of Spain, through the Andalusian provinces of Cadiz, Malaga and Granada, the famed Costa del Sol welcomes millions of visitors each year. They stroll hidden coves of Nerja in the east. They swim off the wide, expansive beaches of Marbella in the west. They swing golf clubs near Torremolinos or Fuengirola or a dozen seaside resorts, basking in warmth from sunshine unimpeded 300 days of the year.
In the middle of the Costa del Sol, wedged between mountains and the Mediterranean Sea, Malaga (population 550,000) is the Sun Coast’s largest and most vibrant city.
This is the birthplace of Pablo Picasso, which might explain its emergence as a “city of museums.” It’s an archaeologist’s wonderland, with Roman ruins dating almost to the birth of Christ. It boasts more than a dozen city beaches, a range of great hotels, some of Spain’s tastiest and least-expensive tapas bars, and the only international airport on the storied coast.
Present meets past
Malaga, gateway to the Costa del Sol, is indeed a tourist’s delight. It’s a laid-back Spanish resort with one foot in the 21st century and the other in an ancient past.
On a hillside overlooking the city, the towering walls of the Alcazaba zigzag through the trees like a miniature Great Wall of China. This 11th-century palace/fortress is Malaga’s most prominent landmark. Built by Arab monarchs who inhabited the city as early as A.D. 711 and remodeled by a succession of 13th- and 14th-century rulers (including Arab kings from Granada), the Alcazaba is an elaborate maze of palaces, courtyards, defensive towers and high horseshoe gates typical of Islamic architecture.
Perhaps because of the growing use of artillery around the 14th century, Gibralfaro Castle was built to defend the Alcazaba. Boasting high ramparts, lookout turrets and a lengthy walled-in pathway that connects it to the Alcazaba, the impregnable fortress-castle provided unparalleled vantage points from which to spot invaders.
Modern-day visitors also are afforded spectacular views of Malaga: the Plaza de Toros (bullring), the seaport (one of Spain’s busiest), the mountains and the city.
Over the years, however, the landscape has changed.
Water is conspicuously absent from the Guadalmedia River. A testament to the hot, dry, subtropical climate that is the delight of summer beachgoers, the Guadalmedia has been dry for as long as anyone around here can remember.
The riverbed cuts a swath through the city, dividing it in two.
On the east bank of the Guadalmedia is historic Old Town. This is the Malaga most travelers come for.
Tucked along tree-lined Alameda Principal, Casa Antigua de Guardia is the epitome of 19th-century Malaga. Since 1840, this tavern has served sweet table wine to generations of loyal customers. Instead of dispensing wine from bottles, bartenders turn spigots on the wooden barrels positioned against a side wall. Out pours sweet wine: Seco, Moscatel, Pedro Ximen or Malaga Quina.
Heart of Old Town
Around the corner on Marques del Larios beats the heart of historic Old Town. The polished marble pedestrian lane is rife with locals and tourists. They swarm into Zara and Mango, two popular designer-clothing stores.
Much like la Ramblas in Barcelona, Marques del Larios is a moveable circus of mimes, musicians and street performers. But unlike la Ramblas, always crowded, Marques del Larios becomes a ghost town at lunchtime. Driven by the relentless midday sun, crowds scatter into a labyrinth of shaded pedestrian lanes to feast at tapas bars.
Heat’s on: time to eat
On Calle Sanchez Pastor, a few doors down from el Peluqueria de Caballeros (barber shop) and across from la Papeleria (stationery shop), hungry locals sprint toward empty seats at Quitapenas.
At this local seafood favorite, dining tables have been replaced by upended barrels of sweet wine.
If your experience is similar to that of other Quitapenas diners, a grizzled waiter will nod his head without seeming to hear your order. While your last broken Spanish plea remains caught like a bone in your throat, the waiter will rush over to the folks at the next barrel and offer the same lack of attention. But five minutes later, the plates arrive.
The lagostinos (shrimp) – grilled in a drop or two of olive oil and a dash of garlic and sprayed with a wedge of lemon – are to die for. As is the fried pulpo (octopus) and calamar (squid), all of which are caught in local waters and purchased each morning at bustling Atarazanas market. But Malaga is famous for boquerones – a small, tasty sardinelike fish that waiters often apologize for running out of.
At Quitapenas, boquerones are served fried. They come in half-plates (about 20 individual fish) or full plates (perhaps 45 or 50). Using your thumb and forefinger, simply pick up one of the crispy 2-inch-long fish and drop it in your mouth – head, tail and all. There is no better meal in Malaga.
Unless, of course, you try filleted boquerones marinated in sweet vinegar and served with olive oil, minced onions and cilantro. This signature dish is preferred by locals and served at restaurants everywhere. It’s become so much a part of local identity that Malaguenos are occasionally referred to as Boquerones.
Malaga long has been recognized as one of Europe’s least-expensive watering holes. At Vinoteca, one of a growing number of stylish wine bars, waiters serve vino in delicate long-stemmed glasses. Accompanied by a bowl of plump Spanish olives, a good Spanish wine can be had for less than $3.
Sixteen wines grace the menu at Bodegas el Pimpi. But regardless of where you’ve camped out in this maze of darkened rooms and half-lighted courtyards, your bill is bound to be minimal. The most expensive wine costs $2.50 per glass.
And yet at tapas bars and up-market restaurants alike, tinto de verano is all the rage. The playful mix of red wine and Sprite is as refreshing as the sun is warm.
Taste the culture too
An evening at the Cervantes Theater is not to be missed. Reserve an orchestra seat or stage box inside the quad-level, 1,100-seat performing arts theater. Since its grand opening in 1870, when the audience cheered to the orchestral reverberations of the William Tell Overture, the Cervantes has been at the heart of Malaga’s cultural scene.
If museums are your thing, Malaga is a cultural treasure trove. The city supports more than 20. Fifteen are grouped together in historic Old Town. With a number of soon-to-
open facilities like the Wine Museum, Heritage Museum and Holy Week Museum, Old Town will lay claim to some 23 establishments.
Two museums are dedicated to Malaga’s favorite son, the most influential painter of the 20th century: Pablo Ruiz Picasso.
Picasso was born Oct. 25, 1881, in a four-story corner house at Plaza de Merced 15. Until 1883, his family occupied an apartment on the first floor. It was in these cramped surroundings that Picasso took his first steps, learned his first words and developed his first artistic impressions.
Appropriately, the residence has been restored. It now exists as the Picasso Casa Natal Museum (Picasso’s Birthplace). Casa Natal is a replica of the type of 19th-century home in which Malaga’s bourgeois class lived. The living room is decorated with antique Chippendale chairs and an 1850s walnut tallboy. The walls are adorned with photos of the artist and personal items such as his christening robe.
In addition to several works by Picasso, Casa Natal displays an 1878 painting by Jose Ruiz Blasco, Picasso’s father. Blasco was an art teacher and a distinguished artist in his own right. Realizing that his son was a prodigy, he enrolled him at the Academy of Fine Arts in Coruna. The rest is art history.
A few winding narrow streets away, the Museo Picasso Malaga is as grand as the Casa Natal is quaint. Inside the main building, which has been declared a national monument, the permanent collection presents a variety of works – some of which have never been displayed.
Hundreds of paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures and ceramics chronicle Picasso’s career from budding teenage painter to master artist. A stroll across the glassy gallery floor takes you from “Little Girl and her Doll” (a portrait of Picasso’s sister, Lola, painted when he was only 15), through his psychologically somber blue period and on to the age of cubism, his revolutionary twist on perspective.
Art amid artifacts
The permanent collection is housed in the Buenavesta Palace, a restored 16th-century Andalusian building with a history of its own. During the renovation and expansion of the museum, Roman and Phoenician ruins were unearthed. The remains of ancient dwellings are appropriately preserved in the lower level, beneath a plethora of Picassos.
With all its history and prodigious art, all its tasty tapas and affordable wine, Malaga remains a quintessential beach town. Sixteen sandy swaths – Playa Misericordia, Playa San Andres, Playa de las Acacias, Playa del Palo – provide escape paths from the searing summer heat to the cool blue Mediterranean.
The largest beach, Playa de la Malagueta, stretches from historic Old Town to the tidy eastern suburbs of Bellavista and El Morlaco. Clusters of beach chairs, each shaded by a thatched-roof umbrella, welcome the faithful who often sunbathe in thong bikini bottoms and not much else.
If sprawling beachfront hotels are your preference, you won’t find them in Malaga. Best head west along the Costa del Sol and a succession of resorts that pepper the coast all the way to Gibraltar. But if you’re looking for everything else under the sun, including the world’s best boquerones, Malaga might just be the place.
Elliott Hester is the author of “Adventures of a Continental Drifter.” Contact Hester at megoglobal@hotmail.com or visit elliotthester.com.
Insider’s guide
GET THERE: Malaga city is situated on the Costa del Sol, the southern Sun Coast of Spain. A variety of airlines – American, Iberia, Delta, British Airways, United, Air France – fly from major U.S. hubs and connect to Malaga Airport through Madrid, London, Paris or Frankfurt.
CLIMATE: Most visitors choose the Costa del Sol during hot, dry summers when the temperatures hover around 90 degrees and the sky is perpetually blue. Winters are mild and rainy.
STAY: Hotel Larios is a stylish 41-room boutique hotel on Old Town’s famed pedestrian street, $220 double, Marques del Larios 2, Malaga 29015; 011-34-952-222-200 or hotel-larios.com.
Hotel AC Malaga Palacio is a 15-story full-service luxury option centrally located between the Cathedral and Paseo del Parque in Old Town, $160 double, Cortina del Muelle 1, Malaga 29015; 011-34-952-215-185 or ac-hotels.com.
Hotel Atarazanas offers tasteful accommodations at an affordable price, $95 double (includes tax and breakfast), Calle Atarazanas 19, Malaga 29004; 011-34-952-121-910 or balboahoteles.com.
DINE: Quitapenas is a cozy seafood eatery where guests dine on upended wine barrels. Tapas are $1.20-$7. Calle Sanchez Pastor 2, 011-34-952-222-064.
Gorki is a chic, up-market tapas restaurant. Tapas are $2-$8, main courses $8.$20. Calle Strachan 6; 011-34-952-369-367.
Bodegas El Pimpi is a Malaga institution housed in a former convent. Tapas are $2-$12. Calle Granada 62; 011-34-952-228-990.
At Antigua Casa De Guardia, bartenders have been pouring sweet dessert wines directly from wooden barrels since 1840. There is a limited selection of seafood tapas. Alemada Principal 18; 011-34-952-214-680.
Vinoteca has affordable wine and tapas bar at Calle Sanchez Pastor 10; 011-34-951-004-304.
PLAY: The Alcazaba, Gibralfaro Castle and the cathedral are clustered near the center of historic Old Town. For more information, contact the Malaga Tourism Office, Plaza de la Marina, 29001 Malaga, Spain; 011-34-952-122-020 or malagaturismo.com.
Picasso Museum is at Calle San Agustin 8; 011-34-902-443-377 or museopicassomalaga.org.
Picasso Casa Natal Museum (Picasso’s birthplace) is at Plaza de Merced 15; 011-34-952-060-215.
Cervantes Theater is on Ramos Marin; 011-34-952-224-100 or teatrocervantes.com.
