Shazam and Gargamel in Malaga

Good news – Torsten is fine and we all thoroughly enjoyed Malaga. We woke up a bit late, which was all to the good, as it allowed us to miss the initial rush of people taking the shuttle bus into Malaga. From the bus drop off point, we walked up to the cathedral, which is massive and truly imposing. However, it was teeming with tourists and would have cost 3.50 Euros to go in, so we gave it a miss. It was quite amazing, how rude people pushing around were! Luckily, Ingo had Torsten in the backpack, so Torsten was protected from the worst of the shovers.

Our main goal for sightseeing in Malaga was to see the Alcazaba, an old Moorish castle that was built on top of some Roman ruins (they’re excavating a coliseum at the foot of the castle). The Alcazaba apparently has a nice museum inside. Unfortunately, the Alzacaba is closed on Mondays, so we continued on up the steep hill to the Castille de Gibralfaro, which is actually older than the Alcazaba (8th century) and more or less adjacent to it. As Ingo said halfway up the climb, it seems as though someone said “Great, we’ve built this wonderful, defensible castle that nobody can overrun – but there are so many freakin’ steps to climb; let’s build another one, lower down”. As the names were a bit tough to remember, we nicknamed them Shazam and Gargamel.

From the Castille (which is at the pinnacle of the hill), we had a wonderful view of the city, including a view overlooking a bullfighting arena. No fights were in progress while we were there. There wasn’t a museum up there, just ruins and ramparts to walk around, but Torsten had a lot of fun running around, and we had a nice refreshing drink up at the top, at the strategically placed café.

Making our way down the hill was quicker, but a bit trickier, than going up, as the pathways were comprised of large, smooth flagstones set in cement. As they were quite steep, you can imagine people trying to storm the castle and being repelled by losing their footing on flagstones made slick with olive oil. Halfway down the hill, we took a different pathway, which led us to a broad pedestrian boulevard lined with trees and overlooking the harbour. Malaga seems to have quite a number of parks, and there are a lot of flowers and trees in evidence – it made for a very pleasant walk. Coming down the hill was so pleasant, in fact, that Torsten fell deeply asleep in his backpack; it was really funny.

We then visited a little wine shop, where we bought some Malaga sweet wine (it was popular in Victorian England, where it was called “mountain sack” – not sure why), and from there we made our way back to the ship. Actually, we made our way back to the shuttle bus pick up point, discovered that the bus pulling out had filled up, waited for a bit, and when we saw that people were going to try to pile onto the next bus regardless of the queue, we decided to walk. It took us half an hour, but it was totally worth it – we gained a leisurely perspective of the harbour, and were spared the scrum of rude people on the bus.

Currently, Torsten is taking a nap, while Ingo is on deck trying to get a good photo of the sailing cruise ship berthed ahead of us. We are somewhat late in pulling out, but no matter. Tomorrow is our last sea day – after that, we have 5 port days in a row, with the last port being our final disembarkation. It’s hard to believe that we’re over halfway through the cruise!

LATER
I don’t think I’ve mentioned it, but Torsten has collected quite the fan club – more so, I think, than any other kid on board. Waitresses stop and say, “Oh this is the famous cute baby I’ve heard so much talk about!”, and other passengers say “Oh look, it’s the cute little boy, the one that was wearing the hat, in the knapsack!”. People are always talking to him, waving at him, and, in the case of various elderly persons in Lisbon, touching and kissing him. He has special friends in the crew – one of the cleaning staff (whose name I’ve forgotten), our two cabin stewards, John and Mochahmad, and one of the hospitality staff, Melania. Torsten eats it all up. It’s going to be hard to get him to settle back into the quiet life in Waterloo!