In certain parts of Spain, the luxury motorcoach is the much-preferred way to travel around from place to place and not just the big cities. My favorite company is Alsa, though there are others, like Avanza, that seem fine. There are trains, but they usually take longer, and several routes aren’t served well by trains. If you want to go from Madrid to Sevilla, or Madrid to Barcelona, or Valencia to Barcelona, the train is the best option.
I booked my 13 Euro bus ticket to Málaga last week and hopped on Granada’s only metro line which dropped me at the door of the Estación de Autobuses in just 13 minutes and soon found myself rolling through the mountains and olive groves in Andalusia just after 9 am on a Saturday. I was in Málaga 1.25 hours later, ready to explore.
Some people say Málaga is Spain’s ugliest city, but they obviously haven’t been to Algeciras. I liked the place right away. Málaga has my favorite department store in the world, El Corte Inglés, home of nice things, good food, and clean restrooms, called aseos in Spain. There was a charming market, tiny streets, a fancy cathedral, Picasso’s birthplace, an Alcazar fortress, a castle, a vast, modern cruise ship port, a few beaches, and a decent public transport system. I saw a protest march going down the main shopping street Calle Lario, something about Málaga being a sustainable place to live.
A general problem these days everywhere is that people and companies have snapped up real estate and now rent it to tourists more profitably than to locals. So there is a shortage of affordable housing. People are understandably angry. It’s a conundrum because if you build giant cruise ship ports and then get mad because there are zillions of tourists swamping your city, I can’t see exactly how this is the tourist’s problem. It’s a city governing and planning problem.
I set off on foot and realized how hungry I was. I settled on a place that sells “American” breakfast food. It was a dumb decision and I took a picture of my meal. If that place were in the US, let’s just say I wouldn’t return. But they were trying. It was fun. I spoke to a Canadian couple on their honeymoon. They were visiting Barcelona, Marbella, Málaga, and Seville.
I popped into the market, like so many others in Spain, then mosied on over to the Picasso Museum. Good thing I saw the real Picasso museum in Barcelona in March because the line to get in was about half a mile long of cruise ship passengers. Ditto for the cathedral and the Alcazar. The views from the castle are supposed to be nice, but the thought of walking down the hill with my sore knee decided me against it.
I headed for the port and enjoyed the shops and the views of the ship harbor then went to the beach and admired the Med for the last time this trip. There were a few hardy swimmers but mostly people just sat and looked at the water, wearing street clothes.
At this point, I was ready to explore two more art galleries but both were “temporarily closed”. Ugh. I still had hours to wait for my return bus to Granada.
At the bus station, I used my stellar Spanish to change the return ticket and make it back to Granada in time for dinner. The weather in Málaga was sunny and warm, but Granada was rainy and cold. What a difference a mountain range makes.
