Malaga, Spain–Sept 7, 2014

I had pre-booked a City Bike Tour for Malaga and all we had to do was find our way to the meeting point.  The dock here is huge and it is a 2 mile walk to the entrance, so fortunately they had shuttle buses that drove us to the City Centre.  We were to meet at a place called Plaza de la Marina in front of the Tourist Office and we started to get really nervous as the bus drove right past the Tourist Office but thankfully he had to drive by it in order to turn around and park in a bus parking area which was just across from the Tourist Office.  Charlotte, our tour guide was waiting for us and she took us to the bike store which was just around the corner to get our bikes.  She was very informative and it was a nice ride around the city and she showed  us the points of interest in this area. 

One of the most interesting points was that Antonia Banderas (Hollywood actor) is from Malaga, Spain.  She showed us the church he attended when a youngster and how he returns quite often and apparently he is moving back to Malaga to live next year.  He has bought the top part of a building in the city center which is now being renovated and getting ready for him to move in. 

Malaga is also the birth place of Pablo Picasso, pictures to follow including his birth certificate!

This is our bike group of 9 people.  This was an open square and where the house is that Picasso was born.

Picasso was born and lived as a young boy somewhere on the second floor from the top in the middle. 

This is Picasso as a man but apparently  he only lived in Malaga until the age of 10 or 12 before his family moved out of the region. His father was artist as well!

Way back in the day (as our guide would often say), the Muslins/Arabic people occupied this area but at some point in history, the Christians took over and pushed the Muslins out.  They took over all the Mosques and turned them into Christian churches (mainly Catholic – I think) but some areas of the church you still see parts that show they were originally Muslin. This was the original door as it was in the Muslin era as you see by the Mosiac tile around the door. 

As you see though, the insides of the church are Christian.  It was absolutely beautiful inside this church but from the outside you would have never known it looked like this on the inside.

This is another Church that took over 200 years to build and in fact it is still not finished. It has a Tower on the right but the left is still not built. So the Malaga people are quite proud to have a church that is still not finished and dates back centuries! This is the church where Picasso was christened. His birth certificate is below:

Picasso’s birth certificate – It is so big as he has many many middle names!

This is the church where Antonio Banderas was christened and attended in his younger years.  He returns once a year at least and is very keen on going back to the church of his youth.  Antonio donates a lot of money to charitable organizations in Malaga especially for the enhancement of children’s lives. 

We thought of Roy when we saw this.  This is scaffolding over a building that is being renovated and is covered with this huge poster of a local beer!

At the end of our bike tour we rode along the beach area promenade.  It was quite crowded with people as it was yet another hot day – high 20’s but it felt like 30 to me!

The bike tour was approximately 4 hours and we were happy to get back to the ship as we were very hot!!  Tomorrow we head for Cartagena, Spain!