The UK is unappetising in November so headed off on a winter warmup to Spain.
With a mid-afternoon flight from Birmingham there was the comparative luxury of a reasonable start time for travelling, but meant arriving early evening at Málaga and anon-descript airport hotel for the night.
So next morning checkout and catch the coach into Málaga, dump the bag in a locker at the rail station and go for an explore around the city. Well to be honest I wasn’t doing too much wanderlust and headed straight to the Museo Picasso Málaga which gives a nice sense of the artists evolution. A mooch around the nearby cathedral and waterfront before heading back to the train station, the bag and a train inland to Córdoba.
The older part of the city, where of course I was staying because its cheaper, is a maze of narrow back alleys that befit its medieval heritage. GPS and a phone made it no problem to locate the Hostal la Fuente. Everywhere seems lined with fragrant orange trees.
The next day, Sunday, I’d booked a guided bike tour. Rather off-season so just me and the guide. And it chose to be the day it tipped down. The weather also meant that the open-air Flemenco show I was hoping to see was cancelled. Monday I took a bike from the same bike shop ELEKTRIK.ES for a days cycling down the Via Verde. As always with the cycling, having nothing to do but pedal and observe greenery does me the world of good. There are a lot of distance cycling routes in the region, Córdoba would make a good base to explore from.
Any aching from the cycling was swept away by the “wow!” of the famous Mezquita, an historic mosque with a Christian cathedral embedded at its centre. Beautiful and unique. This is the rich history of southern Spain where Christian, Jew and Muslim once flourished together.
A few more tours including the Alhambra, the palace of Viana showcasing some of the beautiful architectural and floral courtyards the area is known for and some pottering in shops before reversing the journey back to Birmingham brought the week to a close.
It may only have been a week but it felt nice to get some sun on the skin, relax and soak in the experience.