At Sea Again then SPAIN!

At Sea Again then SPAIN!

 10/16
Another sea day with continued bumpy seas and day of boredom except I again played bridge with Bernie, the British national master, and the two women who are terrible players. Overnight we sailed through the Straits of Gibraltar. We happened to wake up at 2 AM and got up to look out and could see there were lots of lights and that we were fairly close to shore but there wasn't much to see at that hour.

10/17

We woke up in Malaga, Spain to a beautiful sunrise and the promise of a clear day.


10/17
Malaga is a narrow town along the coast that rapidly rises into surrounding mountains. We began with a bus tour up onto the surrounding hills above the town where we walked further up the hill for a spectacular view. 
Bull ring and port




















Back down to sea level we had a walking tour of the town which has Roman ruins found during a construction project. Malaga is where Picasso was born and a bronze sculpture of the artist is in the central park of the city. A vendor was selling Spanish almond (nuts that are skinned and deep fried) that we sampled and bought.
Almond vendor
Picasso and friends


Note traffic. The empty table was ours.
















After our tour, we had the rest of the day free and access to a shuttle bus back to the ship. We decided to have lunch in town. After my dreadful choice of restaurant in Bruges, we gave Patty and Ira full decision making power in finding our lunch spot. After meandering up and down what seemed to be every street in Malaga, they decided on a tiny, crowded sidewalk restaurant next to a very busy street. They had a tapas menu and we all got something different. Dick got fried octopus (to Ira's horror), Ira got fried anchovies that were soooo good that we ordered a second order, I had octopus salad, roasted peppers, meatballs with almond sauce and artichokes, Patty had a shrimp salad and a couple other things I don't remember. We all drank beer. Everything was really good despite the exhaust fumes from the traffic.


Anchovies. Yum!!


















After lunch we discovered that our restaurant was right next to the market hall so we went through and checked it out. Lots of great seafood and produce was available. 
She looks like she's had enough of this day.



Barnacles! An expensive delicacy in Spain.

























We walked back through the town to the shuttle bus to go back to the ship late in the afternoon, met for drinks before dinner, had dinner and called it a day.











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