Transatlantic Cruise, Part 2: Málaga

Day 489 (October 30, 2019): Málaga, Spain

Another day, another port stop. It took us a while to get up, eat some breakfast, and get properly slathered in sunscreen before hitting the streets of Málaga for the day. The pier for the cruise ships was far out into the water, so we had a long walk to get to shore. Málaga was a much larger city than Cartagena, and it seems to be a bit more tourist oriented. There was long stretch of sandy beach out to our right and an equally long row of beachfront high-rises. And despite how late in the season it was, people were still hanging out on the beach and a few of them were even swimming.

Málaga had a nice downtown area, although it was packed with tourists. Many from the cruise ship, but certainly not all of them. Most streets were for pedestrians only, although occasionally a car would try driving down them, but not traveling much faster than any of the people walking. There was a lot of interesting architecture around town, although the narrow streets could make it difficult to get a good view of some of the more interesting buildings.

We also walked up towards Castillo de Gibralfaro, which was located up on a giant hill. We didn’t care about seeing the castle to be honest, but we did want to try and get a view of the city from the top of the hill. It did not disappoint, but it did take some effort to get up there. There was a paved walking path with lots of people on it, but it was steep and extremely hot out, and we had long since lost our Peruvian hiking legs. But we could see all of town from the top, and our cruise ship way out on the dock, and we had a great view of the bull fighting ring too, which isn't something you typically come across.

On our way back down the hill we walked along the beach. We picked up a couple snacks from a grocery store and sat on a bench under a palm tree for a while. We considered hanging out on the beach for the rest of the afternoon, but we were disgustingly hot and sweaty from the hike up the hill and adding sand and more sunscreen to that mix didn’t sound very appealing at the time. So we decided to be done with our Málaga sightseeing and slowly made our way back along the beach and along the pier all the way back to the boat. There was another beautiful sunset that night as we set sail for Cadiz.