I would normally write ‘Cycling Day’ or ‘Rest Day’ plus a number up there in the title but that clearly isn’t yet relevant to this part of 2015’s travels across Europe as for the first five or six weeks I’m not going to be doing much crossing of anything apart from Andalucia. But it’s not going to stop me blogging even if for much of the next few weeks the posts that I write will have to be categorised under the ‘Nothing to do with cycling’ heading. Today has had nothing to do with cycling…

It did have everything to do with travelling down here to Malaga however and then wandering around this very pleasant Mediterranean city in a temperature that back in Britain I would associate with a nice day in July rather than one at the end of February. One display outside a pharmacy told me it was 19°c; in the direct sunlight it felt much more than that.

The flying went to plan. I don’t like flying so buried my head into the Rough Guide to Spain and read all about the history of the country from the initial settlers from North Africa many hundreds of thousands of years ago to the economic realities of the early 21st century. A slow browse of the ‘Andalucia’ section followed. The plane landed, I found the train for the centre of Malaga and I arrived in the city centre. Nothing to report. Apart, that is, from the head-turning sight of two ambulances being pursued at speed by three fire engines (all with sirens on maximum setting) as I walked along the road from the station to my hotel in the centre. ‘Wouldn’t it be awful if my hotel had been burnt down’ I thought as I neared my destination. It was with a certain amount of alarm when I did find the Hotel Don Curros to find also the five emergency vehicles parked outside with fire-fighting activity taking place. No sign of a fire however and the hotel receptionist assured me that it was next door. I could still hear the commotion in the street when I opened my 8th floor balcony window (although wasn’t able to see anything due to my top floor being set back a little from the floor below) but when I set off for my wander, the activity had ceased and everyone was packing up to go home. False alarm I assume.

It is now just after 8pm and I have found a bar near the hotel in which to take stock. I’ve spent the last two or three hours wandering around and may do so again after posting this. Below are a few images of the very attractive central and port area of Malaga.

Tomorrow I’m heading down the coast to my uncle’s house which is between the towns of Marbella and Estepona and then Saturday I travel to Cadiz to start my language course. I have much to learn…

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