Malaga Old Town and La Alcazaba

The walk from the train station to old town is about a half hour.  Old town is a maze of narrow alleys lined with shops and restaurants with outdoor dining. The visitor information center is adjacent to the commercial port where a Silversea cruise ship and ferry are docked.

A guide book leads us to a restaurant where we have a good lunch while people watching folks dining at the pub across the alley.  A complimentary mixed seafood salad is followed by foie gras with a Pedro Ximenez reduction sauce and mango drizzled with a strawberry sauce (house specialty); cuttlefish with chickpeas, spinach and carrots; mixed fried seafood (house specialty); and fried eggplant drizzled with honey. The bill came with complementary herbal drink similar to Génépi.

  



The Spanish do like to drink before their meal. We watch two parties go through numerous courses of drink before ordering the first meal selections.

In the afternoon, we pass by the Roman Theater (Teatro Romano) before entering La Alcazaba.



This palace of Islamic rulers is very different than those in Seville and Granada. This one is more architecturally interesting particularly from a military defense perspective.  It's more simple than the one in Seville and doesn't have the ornate gardens of the one in Granada. It has the classic design features of symmetry and gravity fed flowing water and water features throughout.

 

 



A taxi delivers us back to the hotel where we spend the evening socializing with a mob of Pam lager louts down for a soccer match. At one count there were 25 of them. There was no way to count beers consumed given the rate of consumption.