(Or Moops if you’re a Seinfeld fan.)

Troy and I both made it to Malaga. It’s lovely here. Still high 60s or low 70s during the day in the strong sun. No rain and little wind. Andalusia is living up to its reputation.

I arrived Friday evening after long rides on two buses. And Troy arrived the next day after even longer rides on two planes. It took us awhile to find each other in the airport after she cleared customs (with only one agent on duty for several planeloads of people) and I had to rent a car.

But all’s great. We found each other. We got the car. We made it back to the Airbnb and parked the car (with a tiny elevator and a tiny spot) in our garage. We had Spanish wine and cheese. Life is good.

The next day we took a local “free” tour and managed to catch up on history (Spanish, Andalusian, and Malagan) and the major town sites and personalities. And found out that on Sundays it’s free entry to their Moorish fortress, Alcazaba, and to the Picasso museum in the afternoons.

Party! Following the tour we had lunch (tapas of course) at one of the most famous wineries/tapas restaurants, El Pimpi (would I lie to you?). It was lovely.

Every famous Spanish personality has apparently gone there and left a photo — and the bigger names signed a cask. I didn’t even realize we were standing in front of Paloma Picasso’s (see above) and we took a photo of Antonio Banderas’ cask.

Food was good. House wine was good. Resting our feet was good!

Then we went to the Alcazaba.

We didn’t get to do the whole palace as we wanted to have more time at the Picasso museum (where we couldn’t take photos). We figured we could return later – but we’re also going to visit Córdoba and Granada and their Moorish palaces are supposed to be much more complete and amazing so we may not return.

While in line at the Picasso museum we chatted with the young Spanish couple ahead of us. They had been Spanish history majors and told us more about local history and competition among Andalusian cities (they’re from different towns in the area).

We’ve taken walks in the evenings and the plazas are crowded with Spanish families and couples and several tourists (mostly Spanish or other Europeans) in the old center area. Definitely living up to the reputation of staying out late! It’s always past my bedtime and with Troy being a bit discombobulated from the jet lag, we’re getting back in early! But we walked near the port area. And the gardens.

It’s very walkable and tourist friendly.

Taking the advice of the tourist information folks, we decided to go to Ronda. And Córdoba (though that was already on our list, along with Granada).

Ronda is a white hill town. There are several near each other in an Andalusian mountaintop area but we chose to just go to one. We weren’t sure about driving from Malaga and how the roads (mostly single lane highways) were.

It was great. There’s a huge bridge that spans a gorge which separates the Moorish old town from the more modern new town (of the 1700s).

There’s a lot of Arab remains.

And just pretty mountains around the area. We stopped for a snack on a large rock in beautiful sunshine. And looked at this.

We climbed a ton of steps — basically from the top near where the bridge is, down to near the bottom of the gorge – and back up again. It wasn’t as many steps as in Sintra or Skye but it was pretty far. (Ronda is also famous for its bullfighting ring and museum but we weren’t interested so skipped it.)But we also had a lovely lunch (more tapas and incredibly cheap) on a main placa to rest our feet!

Good thing we did. As not far are these caves, Cueva de la Pileta. and there were a lot more steps.

It was worth it. The caves were really cool. They’re famous for their thousands (loose counting) of cave drawings. I mean there were stalactites and stalagmites (though not as impressive as in the Postojna caves) but the really interesting thing is the cave drawings. The area is still privately owned and they only take a few tours a day and limit the number of people — we’re off season of course so had no problems getting in and our group was only 6 people.

We couldn’t take any pictures and the drawings are pretty primitive but you could tell they (mostly) were of horses, bulls, goats, and men. And a huge fish. And then a lot of “schematics” that mostly looked like cross-hatch markings. But they’ve dated the oldest ones to about 25,000 years ago. Weird to think of Neolithic and Paleolithic people drawing on these cave walls and you can still see the remains! The caves also had two really pure water pools (that nonetheless contained creepy microorganisms). I kept expecting Gollum to pop out somewhere.

Anyway it’s getting pretty late so I’m just going to add here that we went today (actually yesterday) to Córdoba. It’s an old city (5,000 years) and we took a tour and saw Roman columns and bridge, but the main attraction is the mosque cathedral. It’s pretty amazing. It’s pretty crazy. Often the Christians tear down the old non Christian structures but they supposedly decided against it partly because many wealthy local families had buried their dead on the property over the years and didn’t want them moved. I’m hoping they also realized the beauty of the space (like the Pantheon in Rome!) and just chose to repurpose the space into a church.

So it’s weird. It just looks like they plunked a church in the middle of the mosque. And turned a lot of side areas into little chapels.

But they mostly left the arches, windows, and ceilings in their original shape.

It was beautiful inside and out. Now that it’s late I’m just going to post a few more photos from the town. It was pretty with lots of flowers and narrow streets. And as I said before, Roman ruins. I have a lot more photos but you get the idea!