I spent Easter in Malaga. Malaga has a lot of gum trees. In fact Malaga has so many gum trees you would have to go a long way to find a city in Australia with as many. The streets are lined with them, they are in every garden and on every hill side. When the wind blows you hear the sharp hiss of wind in a eucalypt forest so familiar in Australia. It was a little disconcerting really. I wasn't expecting gum trees en masse. I had seen them in parks in Barcelona and new they grew well in Spain, but Malaga has taken to them with gusto.Malaga also has a lot of marble. So much in fact that they have paved just about every street in the city with it. It makes for a very pretty town. As well as having marble underfoot the streets in the centre of the city are given over to people rather than cars. You can wander through most of the centre of Malaga without seeing a vehicle. It makes for a vibrant city with shops, cafes, bars and restaurant spilling out into the streets.
Easter in a catholic country is worth experiencing. Last year I was in Sorrento and was caught unawares by the processions, fireworks and celebrations. This year I was ready for it. Huge crowds gathered to line the processional routes and watch the enormous Tronos carried along. The Tronos were large platforms upon which sat images of Christ and the Virgin Mary surrounded by silver and gold canopies and lit by hundreds of candles.The largest to pass me required about 130 solemn men to carry it, dressed in black, hooded, some walking blindfolded, others in bare feet or bound with ropes, all apparent indicators of their devotion.
I was travelling with established travel-buddy Claudia and we rented an apartment just out of the city. The apartment lived up to its advertisement with a large terrace offering a grand view out to sea and a great place for breakfast to start the day.
Day 1 Our first day was spent wandering around Malaga, finding the tourist information office, the railway station, the bus station and the local bus service to the flat (all of which were to be invaluable). We wandered past the deserted looking bull-ring as people stuck posters on the walls finding the bullfighting museum closed too.
Day 2 we had a plan! Lunch in Nerja - the Balcony of Europe. We climbed about a bus in Malaga and an hour or so later we were walking down the pristine white-rendered streets of Nerja. Despite the multitudes of tourists Nerja is a beautiful town set on a cliff above the Mediterranean.Right in the centre of the town the cliff pushed out into the Med about hundred yards or so an forms 'The Balcony of Europe'. It gives a rather nice view of the sea, the cliffs stretching away to the east and the west and back to the town. We fell into a nice little cafe right next to the Balcony, drank beer, ate food and admired the view in the sunshine.
Day 3 Cordoba. We took a train an hour north of Malaga to Cordoba. In the guide books there looked to be plenty to do to fill in a full day. We visited the Mesquita, a remarkable structure which started life as a church, was converted to a mosque, and then back to a church. We wandered across the city's Roman Bridge; strolled around the narrow streets of the old town; had lunch in a pleasant little bistro in the enclosed courtyard of an old villa; 
visited to royal palace and gardens. I wanted to visit the bull fighting museum (note a theme here) but it was closed for refurbishment and we then found ourselves with a couple of hours to spare before our train back to Malaga. A bar by the (river which sounds a lot more classy than it was) and a jug of Sangria saw most of the time wiled away and then a slow walk back to the train station via the town's tiny museum of archaeology filled in the rest.Day 4 on the beach. Sunday dawned sunny and hot. We had no really plans for Easter Sunday other than to have a relaxing day, and as we had a nice beach at the bottom of our street we wandered down. We spent a few hours on the sand and then had a nice late lunch in one of the restaurants lining the beach front. In hindsight we could have gone to a bull-fight. Alas neither of us knew enough Spanish to figure this out from the posters we had seen a few days ago.
Day 5 Not Granada. We had originally planned to spend this day in Granada, but the prospect of
a very early start, a 2 hour bus ride each way, and the fact that we had seen little of the sights of Malaga changed our minds. We wanted to visit the bull fighting museum at the bull ring and headed there first. The bull-ring was open and there was a large cleaning crew clearing away the debris of the previous day's fights... oh, and the museum was still closed. We our agendas then diverged and while I visited the Cathedral, Claudia took in the Picasso museum. We then met up again for a nice-cream and a random stroll around the city. and a hike up the hill to the castle and a fine view over the town and the bull-ring.Day 6 Home.
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