Spain adventure Part 2: Malaga #2

Saturday 4th of April

We woke up on Saturday to a beautiful warm morning. We put on our shorts and comfy shoes and headed out to have a look around. After having breakfast outside we headed up this hill in the centre of town. We climbed up to a viewpoint where you have a fantastic view over the city!

From the viewpoint we headed back down and towards the seafront. We walked along this lovely promenade and ended up on the beach. Here on the beach we took the only selfie on this trip with very sarcastic smiles. By this time the sun had gone behind a cover of clouds but it was still nice and warm.

After all this walking we sat down for a beer and a little free tapas (the best thing about Spain, free food nearly every time you order beer)! We decided to head back to the hostel for a little siesta before heading out for dinner. Now, the name of the restaurant will make all my Finnish friends laugh (sorry, only Finnish people will understand why this is funny). We had dinner in a very popular restaurant called El Pimpi. I have to say, the food was really good and the cocktails were amazing! The restaurant is huge but they have so much staff the service was still quick. I would definitely recommend this restaurant to anyone visiting Malaga.

Once we had filled our stomachs with delicious food, we went for a little walk again looking for a place to have a quiet drink or two. We ended up in a random little bar on a square, a surf bar and a bar completely dedicated to Gin & Tonic. And I have to say, the G&Ts in this country are massive! After this we ended up in a very strange bar. I ordered drinks downstairs while Ricky went upstairs to have a look around. He came back down and said "upstairs is pretty cool, there's like a forest in there". Obviously I had to go and see. I couldn't stop myself laughing when I saw what was actually up there. There were these two big statues called "Argonath" that quite a few of you will remember from Lord of the Rings. When you walk between the statues you arrive in "Hobbiton". You can walk inside Bilbo's house and sit at a table having a beer with a statue of Bilbo himself. The whole bar was movie-themed but this part was that took most of my attention being a huge LotR fan. We had a few more drinks on the streets and went back to the hostel at 5am.

A great day altogether! Stay tuned for more!

Spain adventure Part 1: Malaga #1

I travelled to Spain to meet up with my family. My boyfriend and I took a few days head start to have a little look around Malaga and Granada at Easter time.

Friday 3rd of April

On the 3rd we flew from Belfast City airport straight to Malaga. After landing in Malaga we took a bus to the city centre and made our way to the hostel Residencia Universitaria San José. This hostel was really nice but felt more like renting an apartment rather than staying in a hostel, which suited us just fine!

After putting our luggage down we headed for a little walk around town. Very quicky we noticed that the festival Semana Santa that takes place on Easter was kind of a big deal. Wherever we walked, we bumped into these weird processions of hooded figures. First we thought this was quite interesting but ended up being a bit annoyed by them because they kept blocking our way wherever we tried to go. It was like playing Pacman on these narrow little streets of Malaga avoiding dozens of strange parades of "ghosts".

We found ourselves in a restaurant where we had our first platter of tapas and sangria. After dinner we had some delicious ice cream on the streets for dessert. We went to a little pub basically next to our hostel for a "little" Gin & Tonic and then climbed up to our room. From our window we saw quite a sight. The festivites were clearly starting to reach it's climax. The procession walking straight under our window consisted of the normal hooded guys, musicians and what I am estimating to be around 200 men carrying this massive candle-lit float. I am not even kidding. You can't really see it in the pictures, but the guys are also directly under the "throne". They would only walk for maybe 20 metres at a time and then they had to put it down and rest for a bit because it was just so heavy. We watched the parade pass and went to bed. Sleep did not come very easy that night because the festivities went on the whole night and it was really loud.

More coming up!