Archives, alcazaba, rinse, repeat

Today was in some ways a repeat of yesterday...but more efficient.

After a nice morning in the archives, in which I did not find anything useful, but learned a few amusing things about the "asociaciones culturales" and "casinos" (social clubs) of Málaga in the early twentieth century, and also started looking at the long ago personnel files of the cuerpo de vigilancia of Málaga, I headed directly back to the alcazaba, stopping for lunch at a Japanese restaurant I had noted earlier, that was quiet and quite good.  (The one problem with Málaga being so set up for tourists is that the restaurants tend to be overpriced and to offer "typical" foods which are anything but, and are not very good.  I made the mistake of ordering what was called "fideua" as a primero on Monday and found it was overcooked spaghetti which had been chopped up to one inch lengths.  A disappointment.  The teriyaki however was excellent, the waiters were Japanese and the clientele were Spanish, an ideal combination.)  Then I went back and visited the Roman amphitheater and the alcazaba a second time, this time with a fully charged camera battery and a memory card in the camera.  And it was worth it.  This may be more an entry of pictures than of commentary, simply because the Alcazaba is so beautiful.


To quickly mention the archives, one of the fun facts I discovered today is that starting even in the 1920s a lot of social and cultural organization specifically prohibited any discussion of politics or religion among their members.  A few of them put not mentioning politics or religion right after not entering the club with women of ill repute ("mujeres de aireada vida") and it was apparently a similar social faux pas.  (Politics and religion were apparently like commercial sex.  It was accepted that a lot of men did it, but you weren't supposed to mention it.)

Also I am making friends with the archivists, who helpfully told me to request two boxes at a time so that I don't have to wait in between boxes.  When I was filling out my reserve slip for the box for tomorrow one archivist looked at my name and said "anda, te llamas igual que mi hija."  I thought that was nice.

Anyway, back to post lunch, first I stopped by the Roman amphitheater, which was built in the first century (and some of which got repurposed for the fortress) and took pictures of the exhibit, and the many cats who always sun themselves on the rocks in Roman ruins.  Some of the cats here have docked tails, and I don't know if they lost them in accidents or if there is a family with a genetic quirk that makes them bobcats.  I didn't take pictures of them, because none were close to me when I had the camera out.  I did however get some pictures of some cats who were not amused.

My shadow partially blocked napping cat's sunlight.

 There were quite a number of tourists wandering around the Roman theater (the entrance is free, and there's a nice little exhibit about the excavations, also free) and of course at the Alcazaba, but it did not feel overrun.  I imagine in summer it might be chaotic, but at the moment there is a selection pressure of people willing to forgo the beach to see some things of cultural interest, which makes for a very pleasant crowd, with a fair number of Americans (Americans don't come to Spain for beaches since there are beaches closer to home), and also Brits (generally very pleasant and not conforming at all to stereotypes about Brits on the Costa del Sol), and also French,

Cat was not amused.

Germans, and a fair number of Dutch, frequently with children, as well as a sprinkling of enterprising Chinese tourists who were not taking package tours.  (One older lady who was part of a group of I think three couples asked me in slightly accented but very good English if I would please take their picture with her phone.  I did, of course.  I give people who wander around on their own on a strange continent where they don't speak the language a lot of credit.)  The northern Europeans in general were somewhat imitating the cats in that they tended to sit on the steps and bask in the sun (though it was only about 17 degrees - or low to mid sixties Fahrenheit), but I could hardly blame them.  The sun is indeed brilliant here, and in the late afternoon side-lighting it made the photos look amazing, although the shadows are so black that there's almost too much contrast.

The top of the theater and the foot of the fortress walls...a sunny place to sit.

Below the theater, at street level, there are generally buskers playing music of one sort or another by the benches looking up at the fortress and theater, and among the rows of restaurants with outdoor tables.

Children play soccer in front of the amphitheater and the fortress, where the musicians play

Today there was a trombone that suddenly started up, and echoed up to the battlements of the fortress while I was visiting.  Earlier, there was a man in a tuxedo who was singing (with recorded accompaniment) "Con te partiró" to an admiring crowd, as well as the inevitable strolling accordion players.  The thing is, the remains of the amphitheater still have really good acoustics.  So you can hear the music echoing in the fortress, which is kind of cool.

"A cold and broken hallelujah...."

Yesterday, when I visited the alcazaba for the first time, I had just passed through the monumental first gate (you go through several as you wind up the hill, just like in Minas Tirith in The Lord of the Rings which is for some reason in the southwest corner of Middle Earth...oh, wait....) when I came across the following distasteful column planted there to "Fernando el guerrero, arquitecto de estas obras, 1837-1841" and a singer with an electric guitar in the square below was singing Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, which was an almost eerily appropriate response to the boastful monument to "Fernando el Guerrero" ("And I've seen your flag on the marble arch, and Love is not a Victory March, it's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah...")  This "guerrero" was presumably not the warring Fernando of Aragon who captured the castle in 1487 and made it his private residence for several years thereafter, but his less talented but equally weaselly descendant Fernando VII ("El Deseado") who scrapped the Constitution of Cádiz, but did presumably do the approved Romantic thing of restoring medieval castles.

Aside from this column, the restoration is really quite beautiful.  First you go through the fantasy novel type gates with their arches.

Puerta de la Bóveda vacia - the first of many gates

And then you find yourself along a path that winds around the hill the fortress is built on (it was really an entire self-sufficient town, with houses, streets, plazas, wells and albercas, as well as communal ovens for baking, and a palace at the top), where the path is planted with orange and lemon and grapefruit trees.  Between the wells and the devices for catching rain water, and the citrus fruits hanging along the path no one was ever going to starve or get rickets here.

You continue up the winding path, and eventually can wander along the edge of what was the town (to where there is a small refreshment stand, or head up toward the plaza de armas, and then the palace of the Nasrids, built a few centuries after the initial fortress, where there is an exhibition about medieval ceramics in Málaga, along with pieces found at excavations and modern reproductions.

It's all quite beautiful and quite amazingly empty.  As of a month ago I understand that all tickets for seeing the Alhambra in February were sold out, and you have to buy tickets online and appear promptly at your scheduled time.  Here you wander up to the entrance, pay the 2.20 euros (usually without even a line), and can wander for as long as you like, while exchanging smiles and greetings with the other tourists who are doing the same.  People generally kindly stay out of each other's photos, and there's no crowding or sense of pressure.  It's just a tremendously lovely place.

The only thing that would make it perfect is if there weren't horribly ugly condos completely blocking the view of the beach to one side (although you can see the lighthouse and the working port, which is originally what the castle was built to defend).

Looking out to sea

Patio de la alberca, Nasrid Palace

I took lots more photos, and enjoyed doing the little close ups of details like ceilings and decorations on columns that I don't normally do.  But due to iffy hotel WiFi, I am going to pause here for tonight, and try to upload more photos when I get a chance.  In a general sort of way, this place is very beautiful, and I'm not at all sorry about going back a second time.  Tomorrow I will try to go to the associated Gibralfaro, the complex on the next hill (overlooking the lighthouse, hence its name, "lighthouse rock").  In the meantime, I hope these photos of the Alcazaba give some sense of what it's like.  It's lucky that Washington Irving didn't stay here as well as Granada, or this palace would be overrun too.