Tag Archives: Spain

January 11, 2020 · 12:50 pm

Museo Automovilístico, Málaga

Or for the gringos in the crowd, Automobile Museum. Pretty sure you’re all smart enough to see the cognates in the Spanish words :)

When I learned that there was an automobile museum in Málaga, I knew we had to visit it. We’d been to the automobile museum in Reno years ago and really enjoyed it. Check out my post of that visit here if you like.

The museum in Málaga is outside the city center and since we had planned to visit other sites outside the center, I learned about bus passes. I got one card that we could use between us and it covered all three of our bus trips. I chose a ten ride pass and if you’re doing the math you might wonder what happened to ride numbers 11 and 12? Well, we walked down from Gibralfaro instead of taking the bus back down the hill.

It was another enjoyable visit to this automobile museum. It’s official title is Museo Automovilístico y de la Moda because they have mannequins in period dress to go along with the cars. I think my favorite was the Hippi car designed by John Lennon. Take a look and decide which ones are your favorites.

First my photos:

a bar in the back seat!

Mom would have liked this one (her name was Goldie)

Pink cadillac?

Pink cadillac

Hippie car designed by John Lennon

Hippie car

Jaguar hood ornament, different than the ones I’ve seen before

I liked this Mercedes too

And John’s photos. I noticed there aren’t too many duplicates which gives you an idea of how many cars we saw. A lot! Well, worth a visit if you’re in Málaga.

definitely a cadillac

we both liked this one :)

Also, if you’re curious about a particular car or would like more information about the museum, check out their website. They have online galleries of all the cars as well as all the fashions. Enjoy!!

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Tagged as Automobile museum, España, Málaga, Museo Automovilístico Málaga, photography, Spain

January 4, 2020 · 3:43 pm

Urban art in Málaga, Spain

Greetings!! It’s time for one more post about our trip to Spain at the end of the summer last year. This time I’m not going to write too much. I just want to share photos of the urban art that we saw in the Lagunillas neighborhood of Málaga. It’s near the Plaza de Merced and the Museum of the house where Picasso was born. Fascinating art. Take a look!

Updated to include a link to the blog post where I learned of this great urban art. Do check it out. I think you’ll enjoy it.

First, my photos:

great replica of Guernica, perhaps Picasso’s most famous portrait

And John’s:

I hope you enjoyed these!! It was fun seeking them out. Oh yea, if you go to view these artworks, be advised that the neighborhood is a bit run down. Just so you’re not surprised. But I highly recommend checking them out.

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Tagged as España, Málaga, photography, Spain

December 28, 2019 · 11:53 am

Gibralfaro, Málaga

Gibralfaro, the “elusive” castle that we hadn’t managed to get to on any of the last 3 trips to Málaga for various reasons. But we made it this time! And I’m so glad we did. If you missed any of my previous posts about our most recent trip to Spain in September 2019 you can check them out at the following links. My first post is here. A post about the food we ate is here. And one other post about the Jardín Botánico Histórico La Concepción in Málaga is here. I have a couple more posts lined up for the future so I hope you’ll come back for those.

Gibralfaro castle is connected to the Alcazaba (the fortress) below. You can get a combined ticket for both or a ticket for just one or the other. We chose the combined ticket as we love the Alcazaba and thought we could walk down from the castle right into the Alcazaba. Well, maybe you can but apparently there is another path that takes you to the bottom of the hill and outside the Alcazaba. That was the path we took. Since it was a hot day and we toured the castle grounds first, we decided to skip the Alcazaba in favor of refreshment at El Pimpi. El Pimpi is a very touristy restaurant but we really enjoy it as we sit on their patio with a view of the Teatro Romano (Roman theatre) while watching the world go by.

Below is a paragraph taken from this site as I wanted to include a little of the history here. I’d rather not rewrite what others have already written so well.

The castle was built in 929AD by Abd-al-Rahman III, Caliph of Córdoba on a former Phoenician enclosure and lighthouse, from which its name was derived – gebel-faro (Arabic and Greek, meaning rock of the lighthouse). Yusef 1, Sultan of Granada, enlarged it at the beginning of the 14th century, also adding the double wall down to the Alcazaba.

Wikipedia has a little different take about where the name Gibralfaro comes from as well as information about the famous battle in 1487:

The name is said to be derived from Arabic, Jbel, rock or mount, and Greek the word for light, Jbel-Faro, meaning “Rock of Light”.[2] The castle is famous for its three-month siege in 1487 by the Catholic monarchs, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, which ended when hunger forced the Malagueños to surrender.

Do click the links for more fascinating history of the place! The first link contains information on what you can see today if you visit. It mentions three ways to get there but we took a city bus #35 and that worked great.

I found one other link that looks like a blog post and that was fairly informative as well.

And of course we took photos! Once again I’m combining my husband’s photos along with mine. I hope you will enjoy the tour through our lenses.

Gibralfaro, Málaga

on our way down the hill

Jardín Botánico Histórico La Concepción, Málaga

As most of you already know hubby and I took another trip to Spain at the end of August and through the first week of September. I’ve created a couple of posts already so feel free to check out my intro post as well as my summary of the food we had. This post is all about that glorious Jardín Botánico Histórico La Concepción in Málaga.

I learned of the Jardín Botánico through TripAdvisor and after reading about it, I knew I had to make the trip to see it. In our previous trips to Málaga we had not ventured outside of the historic center. We wanted to see more than just the sites in the city center so I learned about bus passes and the Jardín was one of the places we ventured to. The nice gal at the tourist office confirmed which bus we needed and where to pick it up. We had about a mile hike from where the bus let us off but we didn’t mind although it was pretty hot that day. It was nice to walk through different neighborhoods of the city.

The Jardín Botánico was acquired by the city of Málaga in 1990 and were created in about 1855 by the Marquis of Casa Loring. In 1911 the gardens were purchased and extended by the Echevarría-Echevarrieta family and display a beautiful open-air collection of tropical and subtropical flora. The plant species come from Europe, America, Asia, Africa and Oceania. In 1943 they were officially declared a historical-artistic garden and are currently declared as being Bien de Interés Cultural, a place of cultural interest. In 1994 the city opened it to the public and it’s been enjoyed by many since then.

Although it was hot the day we were there, we found refuge in the many shaded areas as well as benches to rest upon. We were given a map at the entrance and we wandered around and saw most of the gardens. The one exception to the shaded areas was their huge display of cactus plants. We were both so enthralled by the many varieties of cacti we almost didn’t notice the sun beating down on us. My first gallery consists of the cactus plants. This is a combination of both mine and hubby’s photos. Take a look. I think you’ll be impressed!

cactus – Jardín Botánico-Málaga

I’ve never seen this cactus before

close-up previous cactus

cactus row

cactus – Jardín Botánico-Málaga

The next gallery is a combination of the other areas of the gardens that we explored. By the time we got to the Palm Collection we were too tired to walk down there but we both got a photo of the entrance.

Jardín Botánico

palm with fruit -Jardín Botánico

close up of palm fruit

wisteria arbour – Jardín Botánico, Málaga

water lily – Jardín Botánico

green bamboo

black bamboo?

hibiscus row – Jardín Botánico

hibiscus

Hibiscus row

hibiscus – Jardín Botánico

entrance to Palm Collection

where all the plants come from

On our way out we noticed a beautiful tiled picture of the gardens that I’m including here. If you’re visiting Málaga, I hope you’ll take the time to tour this beautiful place. It’s not just for gardeners as hubby really enjoyed it and I’m the gardener in the family. Here’s the link to their website for more information. Stay tuned for future posts of our trip to Spain. Enjoy!!

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Tagged as España, Jardín Botánico Histórico La Concepción, Málaga, photography, Spain

October 12, 2019 · 7:40 am

The food in Spain

Or I should say, the food that we enjoyed in Spain this trip. If you missed my intro post about our trip to Spain, you can check it out here. For this post I thought I’d talk about the food on this trip.

We landed bright and early in Málaga, even before the sunrise, on a Friday morning. I thought that we might be able to sleep on the plane, then we’d be ready to explore Málaga a bit before being able to check into our room. Oh that was not to be and we had four hours to kill before we could finally relax. I think no more early morning arrivals for this gal.

I had a few things jotted down that we could do that morning and the times those things opened. As we deposited our bags at the hotel, the receptionist giggled a little when I asked if Casa Aranda was open. That’s our favorite churros place and we were hoping to get a table on the patio. He thought maybe but it was so early!! Like I didn’t know that, heh. We did wander over to Casa Aranda and by now it was about 7:15 and they were just setting up the patio. They guided us to a table inside and we sat there until the patio was set up. I wasn’t really hungry as they fed us something on the plane before we landed. So we each had a coffee (and the two churros that the waiter comped us!) and moved on to wait for the tourist office to open at 9:00. It was nice to sit on the plaza and people watch. It was a pleasant 75 degrees with lots of people on scooters, some runners and many birds chirping and flying around.

Finally the travel office opened and I asked all my questions about bus routes for the things we wanted to see outside of the city center. The nice gal wrote all over a tourist map showing where the bus stops were. Hubby bought some post cards and we moved on again.

Then El Corte Inglés (Spain’s biggest department store) didn’t open until 10:00 so we stopped at La Canasta for refreshment. I had my first fresh squeezed orange juice of the trip. Oh my!! You have not tasted OJ unless you’ve had this fresh squeezed stuff. I had it every. single. day. Or close to it anyway. So delicious!! I had a warm croissant with homemade strawberry jam that was also delicious.

Some eating adventures in Málaga were not as good as we had hoped. We went back to one place we had gone to in 2016 but it was not nearly as good so that was too bad. So, no photos of that food, sorry. There was another one in Plaza de la Merced. We got the sampler tapas deal which really wasn’t that great either. I’m now having trouble remembering what all the five tapas were. We did stop at El Pimpi after climbing around at Gibralfaro then walking down the hill back to town. We had their shrimp pil pil and it was delicious. Forgot to take a photo!

We did have a great meal at Matiz, the restaurant attached to our hotel in Málaga, Molina Lario. Alas, I only have one photo from that evening and it was the olives and bread we enjoyed before the meal. One evening we were being particularly picky I guess because it took us over 30 minutes to settle on a place to eat. We were called in by a waitress. Many waiters in Málaga will stand on the patio looking for customers when it’s not busy and try to get you to eat at their restaurant. And so this gal spoke to us in English and we looked at the menu. Oh good, they’ve got boquerones en vinagre (anchovies in vinegar) so this place is okay. This is one of hubby’s favorite things in Spain. And they had the shrimp that he wanted. Cold shrimp that you have to peel. Not my favorite but they were good, once you got the shell off. They had a really good ensalada mixta(mixed salad) so I was happy too. We shared everything and really enjoyed that meal. The waitress spoke about four languages, or was it five? She was Italian but knew English and Spanish and I heard her speaking French to the customers at the next table. When we told her we were Americans she said she’d love to visit America but she won’t because of our so-called president. She also said she likes Americans better than the British.

Yes, back to the food.

We tried different breakfasts this time. I really liked the croissants with ham and cheese. I probably had that the most for breakfast. We ate at Lepanto, a famous pastry and sweet shop in Málaga that also has a full menu. Loved their croissant sandwiches. We had a tortilla espanola one morning. It was a plate with two pieces so was perfect for the two of us. We also partook of the fabulous breakfast buffet at our hotel in Madrid. Did I not take photos of that either? Well, here’s the sad tale. I travelled with sore shoulders this time. I had good and bad days so I guess this affected my photo taking. I did manage to get some food photos that I’m including in the gallery below. I’m also going to include some of hubby’s photos to fill in the gaps. I included photos of our two favorite churros places in my previous post and I’ll include them again in this gallery. They are Casa Aranda in Málaga and San Ginés in Madrid. And of course we had fresh squeezed orange juice at both too. Oh, yum!!

Some other nice meals included a meal of tapas at Nacalú, across the street from our hotel in Málaga. We kept seeing the place fill up in the evenings and decided it must be good and it was! We got a sampler of tapas along with our ticket to the flameco show that we saw in Málaga. The flamenco was at Cal Y Canto and the food came from the adjoining restaurant, El Gallo Ronco. We talked about going back for another meal but we didn’t make it. I read that the cafe in the Jardín Botanico was good and since I was hungry after exploring that glorious place, I decided to try it out. Score!! I had their spinach quiche accompanied by a mixed salad with the most tasty citrus-flavored dressing. Oh my!! One last meal in Málaga was at Quitapenas on the marina. Seafood and another ensalada mixta. See a pattern here?

We had the same meal that we had three years ago at Café Varela, the restaurant attached to our hotel in Madrid, Hotel Preciados. They have the best paella and ensalada mixta that I’ve ever had. I managed to get my favorite tortilla española at El Brillante in Madrid. When I ordered it the waiter asked me if I wanted a whole tortilla española. Oh no! I only wanted one piece. Oh “pincho” he said. Ah yes, I forgot that part. Oops! Delicious and as perfect as I remembered it. We wandered around central Madrid on our last day and then began searching for a place to eat. We stood outside El Botín for a long while because I hadn’t had any lamb yet on this trip. And Botín’s lamb is fantastic! We hemmed and hawed and decided to try something different instead of somewhere we had been before. That and I didn’t want another high priced meal. So we ended up down the street at Mirador del Arco de Cuchilleros. Since their patio was full, a good sign that it’s a good place, we ate inside which was very pleasant. Nice waitress and good service. We had another meal of tapas including boquerones en vinagre, croquetas de jamón, acetunas and chuletitas de cordero (anchovies in vinegar, ham croquetas, olives and lamb chops). Everything was delicious! They even gave us a little salad of tomatoes and cucumbers as a free appetizer.

I hope you’ll enjoy the following gallery of the food that I did manage to photograph. And stay tuned for more posts about our trip to Spain.

Casa Aranda-best churros in Málaga

Casa Aranda patio

warm croissant w/strawberry jam and fresh squeezed OJ-La Canasta, Málaga

Tortilla española for breakfast in Málaga

Matiz at Hotel Molina Lario, Málaga

Ensaladilla rusa – El Gallo Ronco

El Gallo Ronco Málaga(not my best look but included for the patio scene)

Queso de Málaga – El Gallo Ronco

El Gallo Ronco Málaga(I forgot what this was but it was delish!)

A busker outside Matiz, Málaga

Mexican mariachi band buskers!

Spinach quiche, salad at the Jardín Botánico, Málaga

Studying the menu at Nacalú, Málaga

Nacalú, Málaga

Malaga sweet wines and dessert-Nacalú, Málaga

tapas meal, Málaga

Seafood meal at Quitapenas, Málaga

Refreshment and a cigar on the patio at Matiz, Málaga

O’Faro Finisterre, where you still get a free tapa with your drink, Madrid

Café Varela, Madrid-the best paella

Rioja at Café Varela, Madrid

The best ensalada mixta – Café Varela, Madrid

The best paella – Café Varela, Madrid

Cappuccino – Café Varela, Madrid

Churros y chocolate at San Ginés

The best tortilla española – El Brillante, Madrid

El Brillante, Madrid

tapas meal – Mirador del Arco de Cuchilleros, Madrid

As close to flan as I got – Café Varela, Madrid

My last good café con leche – Café Varela, Madrid

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September 21, 2019 · 9:37 am

Spain, revisited

We just returned from many adventures in Spain and I’d love to tell you all about them! We spent six nights in Málaga then three nights in Madrid. It was magical and frustrating and beautiful and all of these things. This was our fourth trip to Málaga and we got to explore the city further and visit new places like the automobile museum and the Jardín Botánico and we finally got to Gibralfaro, the castle at the top of the hill above the alcazaba.

It was sunny and in the mid to upper 80s every. single. day. Hubby was in heaven, it was a tad too hot for me. But you put your hair up and just make sure you’re hydrated and take lots of refresco breaks. Because of the heat we did not go to the Alcazaba as planned and ended up paying for it but not using the ticket. We took the bus to Gibralfaro then walked down and we thought it was the trail that lets you into the alcazaba. Nope. By then we’d already climbed in the heat and we’d have had to climb up into the alcazaba. No. Time for a refresco at Pimpi. That’s the huge restaurant right next to the teatro romano. They have a nice patio and after climbing around up at the castle, the timing was good and we sat right down, ah……

We had a variety of meals and tried different breakfast items this time and made time for two of our favorite churros places. Of course we had tapas many times and several boquerones en vinagre as that is hubby’s favorite. I tried several ensaladas mixtas (mixed salad) and my favorite, hands down, is Cafe Varela’s in Madrid. We saw a fantastic flamenco show in Málaga and it included a sampler of tapas and the food was great!! So was the flamenco. I’m so glad we did that.

We saw lots of art. We love art. I read about and saw photos of urban art in the Lagunillas area of Málaga, to the east of Plaza de la Merced. Not the best neighborhood but they didn’t seem to mind us taking photos of the art. We naturally went to the Picasso museum in Málaga. We always go there. We love that museum! We also went to the Pompidou in Málaga, then the Reina Sofia and the Prado in Madrid. Lots of art!!

We were celebrating hubby’s retirement with this trip and we wanted to see if we could tell if we’d like living in Málaga. I do still love the city but I am no longer sure that I want to retire here. We are rethinking our retirement plans and perhaps we spend 3 months in Málaga each year then do something else the rest of the year. We’re able to stay for 90 days with our passports whereas if we retired there we’d have a lengthy retirement visa process. So, more to think about.

I’m going to create other posts of our trip but for now, I thought I’d share some highlights of our 10 day adventure in Spain. Be on the lookout for some more posts about España!

Hello NYC!

warm croissant w/strawberry jam and fresh squeezed OJ-La Canasta, Málaga

He loved that boat

Selfie on the marina

bird of paradise are everwhere

Hibiscus are everywhere-Málaga

street art

street art-pretty good copy of Guernica

fantastic flamenco show! (Málaga)

Casa Aranda-best churros in Málaga

from atop Gibralfaro

from atop Gibralfaro-Málaga

ah, the bougainvillea….

Miro and some sheep – Pompidou

beautiful fountain ala Alhambra

catedral at sunset from the roof of our hotel

sunset in Málaga

water lily – Jardín Botánico

cactus – Jardín Botánico-Málaga

wisteria arbour – Jardín Botánico, Málaga

Jardín Botánico

palm with fruit -Jardín Botánico

hibiscus – Jardín Botánico

hibiscus row – Jardín Botánico

Hippie car designed by John Lennon – automobile museum, Málaga

Larios street

Teatro romano

Café Varela, Madrid-the best paella

Churros y chocolate at San Ginés

The Invisible Man by Dalí – Reina Sofia

Reina Sofia Madrid

Me and Goya – Prado Madrid

Kilometro zero, Madrid

Plaza Mayor selfie, Madrid

tapas meal – Mirador del Arco de Cuchilleros, Madrid

bye Portugal-heading west to JFK

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September 18, 2016 · 8:38 am

Málaga, España

Hello out there! I have been neglecting my little blog and I have missed it greatly. We had a busy summer and the blog posts are stacking up in my head so it’s time to get them out there finally. Summer is a usually busy time anyway because you have to squeeze all the fun outdoor things in before winter comes. But this year we had new music camps, a family reunion and an unexpected trip to attend the wedding of my brother and his partner of 22 years, whew! Now that school has started again and fall is here, it’s time to get back to one of my favorite things, creating blog posts. I hope you all will keep coming back :)

I had been creating a post a week about our trip to Spain earlier this year and I had at least one more that I didn’t create. This one is about Málaga, the city we still think we want to retire to. We started our trip in this charming coastal town in southern Spain. We viewed a beautiful sunset as our plane descended and then spent the next four days holding our noses as we passed piles of trash all over the place. I noticed the piles from our taxi as we drove into town. We managed to be in Málaga during a trash workers strike! Hmmmm…..our timing was perfect eh? Well it will certainly be something I’ll never forget! We tried to not let it bother us but one pile was just steps away from our hotel and you’ll see a photo of it below.

We did so many fun things, some of which I blogged about earlier this year. We paid another visit to the Picasso museum, toured the Alcazaba, spent an afternoon with a blogger friend who showed us cool street art, ate fabulous food and drank the sweet wines of Málaga. If you missed either of my previous posts about Málaga, do click on the links and check them out. I think you’ll enjoy them.

One day it rained a little and we decided to spend that time at the Centre Pompidou. The city of Málaga signed a 5 year agreement with France’s Centre Pompidou to use its name and display pieces from its collection. These works of art date from 1905 forward. In searching for a bit of information I found this article that gives more details about this lovely museum. The Pompidou allows photos so I’ve created a gallery of those.

I hope you’ll enjoy these photos from Málaga, including the photo at the top of the page. This was taken from the roof of our wonderful hotel, Molina Lario, which I highly recommend. Málaga is still at the top of our list of places to retire. A ver lo que pasa (we’ll see what happens)!!

descending into Málaga

ayuntamiento (city hall)

statue about refugees, wish I had taken a photo of the caption

Atarazanas market window from the outside

close-up of Atarazanas market window

with Hans Christian Andersen who loved Málaga

I can almost smell the eau de trash

mmmmm, churros y chocolate, Casa Aranda Málaga

cool sculpture on Larios street

the cathedral from our hotel’s roof

And a few from the Pompidou museum:

we called him the Michelin man

tin foil sculptures of women praying

interactive exhibit – that’s my hand print

the colorful cube in the distance is the Pompidou museum

If you’d like to see more of the artworks, check out their official website. I will definitely be returning when I’m next in Málaga. Here’s one last photo of the cube and the beautiful skies of one of my favorite cities in Spain: