Malaga for Christmas, Day 1

After last year's Christmas in the Alps, we decided to mix it up this year and head some place a little warmer. After going back and forth between a few options, we decided our three days would be best spent in Malaga, located in the South of Spain. Despite the sunny weather, it actually felt a bit like Christmas. I'll post more about our Christmas experience in a later post!

After arriving to Malaga, I realized I had made the biggest travel mistake yet. I didn't charge my camera because I figured I'd just do it when I got to the hotel that night. When I went to plug it in, I realized I brought the wrong outlet adapter, and the hotel didn't have any. So even though I got one the next day, I didn't have my camera our whole first day which is when we did the majority of our sight seeing. So, pretty much all of these photos we took on Cam's phone. Thank goodness he upgraded before the season!

We had a late arriving flight and a really early return flight, so we decided to get a hotel further from the city centre and closer to the airport. We stayed at Sol Guatalmar, and you could see the ocean from our balcony. There was a bus stop right outside, so it was supper easy for us to get into the town.

After grabbing a warm drink in the morning, and walking through the old town, we started our touring with a stop at the Alcazaba. You can see it above the old theatre in these pictures.

The Alcazaba is a fortress that was built between 1057 and 1063 by the former king. The fortress now is still in pretty good condition, and allows tourists to walk around its grounds.

It's actually big enough that we got turned around a few times and a little lost. There were only certain places you can get in and out, so we did a few laps.

The views from here gave us our first glimpse of what Malaga looked like from a distance. You could see the buildings from the city, the marina and the hills in the opposite direction.

After roaming around the fortress and its gardens, we wanted to head up to the castle above it. What we didn't realize was that you had to leave and go back to the bottom before climbing the hill to the castle.

Instead of doing the climb right away, we decided it would be better a little closer to sunset, so we walked toward the beach.

By this time, it was actually a lot warmer than what we were expecting. People were swimming and tanning on the beach. We stopped at a stand and had some ice cream, and immediately regretted it when we saw all the choices a few minutes later on the boardwalk. Rookie mistake.

There were lots of boats along the water front, none of which were small, and tons of shops and restaurants. This is also where the Christmas Market was and where it seemed most of the people were gathering.

I was definitely wishing I had my camera, but it was also kind of nice walking around and taking it all in without feeling the need to stop and get it out of my bag.

It's amazing what a little bit of sun can do for you. After quite a bit of rain and colder weather, walking around in t-shirts and feeling the sun on our face felt sooo good. We were instantly happy with our decision to come to the warmer weather for Christmas break.

After checking out the local scenery, we headed back onto the cobblestone streets to the Picasso Museum.

Picasso was born in Malaga, so the museum has quite a large collection. We probably know the least amount possible about art (oops) but we knew this one gallery we should see.

Thank goodness for the free audio guide that explained what we were looking at.

Of course, if you see the Picasso museum, you had to keep going and also see his statue.

We also took a walk through the botanical gardens that run along the water, which we were already in the middle of before realizing what they were.

We also checked out the cathedral, and waited in line for awhile to see the inside. When we finally got in, it was only to see the little nativity scene and not the rest of the church, so we didn't even really get to see the inside.

You can, however see the church from almost everywhere in the city.

We don't know the entire story about the statue below, other than its of "the Cenachero" or fish vendor. Its a popular symbol of Malaga and we saw it on a ton of postcards and magnets.

It was finally time to start the walk up to the castle.

Definitely not a super hard hike, but not easily accessible for everyone. I was pretty out of breath by this point of the walk, lol.

We took a break at this lookout which is just short of getting to the castle. The views from here were even better than at the fortress earlier in the day.

This is also the best place to get a view of the bull fighting ring. Even though it's slightly embarrassing, we didn't fully understand what bullfighting entailed. Of course, we didn't go, but the history and culture of it was interesting to learn about. It still surprises me that this still happens in these Spanish cities, but the stadium itself looked cool from this view.

We finally made it to the castle, and I am so glad we waited to come until the evening. The views were soooo pretty, and it helped that it wasn't as hot for the walk up.

The castle itself wasn't too much to explore, it was more so about the wall around it where you overlooked the city.

You could see so far in every direction from here, which makes sense as to why the castle was built here in the first place.

Obviously we took advantage of the photo opportunity, even without my camera. Cam was pumped of course... :)

The sun setting over the hills in the distance made me want to stay here forever. This trip was already starting to be the relaxing break we needed.

Even though we saw quite a bit, Malaga felt very relaxed. Maybe it was the sun or the warm weather, but the fact we could walk everywhere and it didn't seem busy was so refreshing. It may have helped that it was Sunday and a lot of stuff was closed.

After taking all the photos we possibly could, we headed back down the hill for dinner along the water. Most of the restaurants had heaters outside so we were able to sit on the patio and enjoy people watching.

We were craving Mexican so after filling up on tacos and quesadillas we took the bus back to our hotel. I made the most of having a bath tub again (no thanks to Danish bathroom designs) and had one every night we were there, haha.

Before bed we were able to catch up with Cam's friends that were celebrating Christmas back home and then went to sleep early. We watched a part of a Christmas movie (it was relaxing but still a long day, lol) and fell asleep to get rested for the exciting day we had coming up!