Playing the tourist in Malaga.....Part Two

I'm sorry that this 'part two' of my Malaga 'tour' has been a long time in coming, but the good news is, I have more photos, having gone there again just over a week ago, to collect my dress and my fascinator for my son's wedding!

I think I mentioned previously that the centre of Malaga is known as 'Historic Malaga' and it really is street after street of historic buildings.  There is also a very large 'indoor' food market right in the centre, which sells all sorts of foodstuffs from fish to shellfish, to fruit smoothies.  I had a delicious mango and banana one!  Well it would be rude not to, wouldn't it ;)

The whole place is beautifully clean and bright, and the food for sale looked of very high quality.  Here are some of the goods on display:

These cherries, my favourite fruit, were as big as conkers!  At the time the cherries were still selling in the supermarket at about 4,99 euros per kilo, so these were a great price.  I suspect they're cheaper this week as the cherry season is sadly coming to an end now :(

These are Dragon Fruits, I've never tasted them before and still haven't!!  I didn't like the look of the insides to be honest!  

Coconuts 1 euro each and pomegranates 4,50 euros per kilo.  These were very large ones too :)

This stall is selling all sorts of olive oil, dried fruit and nuts, including dried figs, strawberries, kiwi and mango.

One end of the building has a massive stained glass window, I meant to get a closer look but got sidetracked by all the nice food on offer!

All sorts of lovely fresh fish!

Lots of different shellfish including oysters from Galicia in the north west of Spain, at 6 euros a kilo. Yum!

Sword fish steaks at 24,00 euros per kilo!  I love swordfish.

All sorts of cheeses, including cream cheeses, hard cheeses, blue cheeses....

Russian salad, potato salad in garlic mayonnaise, pate, snails in sauce.....

The following photos were taken last week on my mobile phone so the quality of them isn't as good....but hope you'll enjoy them all the same....

We discovered another church who's facade had been intricately decorated and then covered by whitewash!  

I took the photo below purely because of the perspective....seeing a small sliver of beautiful blue sky between the two apartment blocks...

I didn't get the name of this square with it's pretty buildings and fountain.  The square itself is lined with small shops and bars/cafes.

We discovered this shop selling Panama hats, it was on one of the side streets off the square.  My hubby was really taken with the pink one, whilst I preferred the mauve.  I talked him out of getting the pink, I didn't think it would go with any of his clothes so he ended up with a nice 'natural' cream coloured one.  He's happy!

Yet another shop selling pretty flamenco dresses.....

The church we saw last time, was open, so we decided to have a look around inside.  It was lovely and cool, such a contrast to the heat in the streets.   I think lots of Spanish churches are too 'elaborately' decorated for my taste, but it is what it is, so I thought I'd share some photos all the same.

Below is the main alter which is incredibly fancy and covered in precious metals.  

 I prefer the more simple look of this side chapel.....

You may also recall that in Part One, I showed you just a glimpse of a pharmacy in one of the side streets, well I managed to take a few more photos to share.  Unfortunately it's quite dark inside but I hope you get the gist....

Finally we stopped for lunch at a restaurant called Block House, which is actually part of a German chain of restaurants.  I had lamb on a bed of spinach, with grilled mashed potatoes, herb butter and cucumber.  Absolutely delicious!!

So there you have it!  I don't think we'll be going into the centre of Malaga again until maybe September, when hopefully, if it's not too hot, I will take in more of the sights and share them on here with you.

I hope you've enjoyed the second part of my little tour of 'historic Malaga', thanks so much for 'visiting'!

Playing the tourist in Malaga

More often than not you'll see me praising Sevilla as being a beautiful city and it is a wonderful place to visit, although of course I'm prejudiced as we live in that Province.  However, we also spend a whole lot of time here in Malaga and recently, even more time in the actual centre of what is known as Historic Malaga. The centre of Malaga is approximately 30 minutes by car from our beach home.

Malaga often is overlooked and only really thought of by tourists as the 'gateway' to the Costa del Sol, which in fairness it is, being home to the very busy Malaga airport which serves the rest of Europe and beyond, the port that plays host to lots of big cruise ships from all over the world,  as well as the train station where the high speed Ave arrives and departs.  But there is far more to Malaga than just those things.  The centre of Malaga is really very attractive, very clean with loads of great shops, bars and places of interest.  So I thought I'd share some of my photos that I took last week, however there are loads so maybe it'll end up being more than one post.  I hope you enjoy seeing a little bit of this vibrant and friendly city!

Spain seems almost  to 'welcome' graffiti and street art and you will see paintings everywhere.  These large murals are painted on the walls of the river which dissects the city.  The river itself is relatively dry most of the year but when the 'rainy season' comes cars have been known to be washed right out into the Mediterranean Sea (it is quite common to see cars parked on the concrete river bed!).  The flash floods that come down from the mountains are incredible!

You'll notice that these murals are all 'water' themed, which is very appropriate :)

One of the bridges that crosses the currently dry river bed is called El puente de la esperanza, meaning the Bridge of Hope.  On the railings people have attached padlocks of all shapes and sizes, some of them have names and little messages written or stuck on them, often these messages say what that particular person is hoping for!  There must have been hundreds of them!  I wonder how many people get what they hope for?  Some of them....I hope!

As we walked through the back streets I took quite a few photos of the very attractive shop fronts.  This one is selling flamenco dresses and was packed to the rafters with dresses of all sorts of colours and patterns.  Unfortunately the shop assistant said that I couldn't take any photos inside, but I took a few outside:

The dresses below are very reasonably priced and obviously factory made, handmade flamenco dresses retail for hundreds and sometimes thousands of euros! 

This church, la iglesia de San Juan Bautista (St John the Baptist Church) is situated opposite the above shop.  The church, built in the 18th Century, shows painting on it's facade that was typical of Malaga architecture of that time, on the 'nobelest' buildings only of course.  However, this church and several other buildings throughout the city, have recently been 'uncovered' as these painted patterns were covered by many layers of whitewash!!  This church is unique for this mesh shaped decoration and the combination of colours.  

 

Just along the street from the church is a pharmacy that looks like it belongs in the early part of the last century!!  I wish I'd taken a photo of their cash register because it was a work of art in itself, but maybe next time!  The walls are lined with shelves containing old apothecary jars, and they're all so so beautifully designed and painted.   You can just see them, as well as the old fashioned wooden counter, archways and doors.

We discovered this little alley way containing a really funny shop that looked like a mixture of arts and crafts as well as clothes for sale.  However, one half of the shop was actually a bustling cafe/bar, but each table was surrounded by goods on display for sale!  It was the two weird characters outside that drew me to notice it:

  

It was an interesting shop and I was tempted to buy a small folding deck chair which I thought would be perfect for my dolls until I saw the price.  I decided it was a bit too expensive but then immediately that we were too far from the shop, so I chastised myself for being such a skinflint and not buying it....maybe next time!

Here's a lovely sweet shop that had some great toys for sale too.  I love their shopfront which takes up a whole big corner, quite a frontage, with the big lollipop and the candy cane stick of rock:

Unfortunately due to a combination of the incredibly clean windows and the bright sunshine, you can't see clearly into the window here, but take my word for it, it was filled with DOLLS!!  Oh and some dinosaurs, but the dolls were the best thing about this window!  

Oooh and inside, CHOCOLATE!!!  What a "to die for combination" dolls AND chocolate!   

 
Two cute little dollshouses and I really like that black police car.....bet it's expensive though!

Another shop selling flamenco dresses and everything else for fiestas and ferias....I love their frontage too, very eye-catching:

I didn't go into this shop but will do next time, because it looks quite interesting.

Here are some attractive buildings that I photographed.  Mostly, I suspect,  are pisos or flats/apartments above the shops.

If I had to live in a city, I would love to live in an apartment that had a balcony overlooking the bustling streets below....a bit like these! 

  

The church, built in the 1700's, nestled in amongst the shops and apartment buildings. 

A very narrow street, common here in Malaga and throughout the rest of Andalucia too. 

The shop below, Almacen del Indiano, sold all sorts of local delicacies, from Spanish ham, dried Cod, olive oil and liquor.  I really loved the pictures that were on the outside of the building.

A quick look inside revealed a small bar area at the back of the actual shop :)

I think I've gone on long enough for one post so I will show you the covered food market in another post......that is if you're all still awake out there!  Sorry this was so long, but I hope you've enjoyed seeing a little bit of Historic central Malaga.

Thank you for visiting and I hope everyone has a great weekend with good weather too!