It’s taken me until New Year’s Eve to find the Cordoba I’ve been looking for and it’s only two minutes from the hotel. Los Mosquitos is everything I want in a Spanish bar. Azure tiles, large hams hanging up on iron hooks and black and white photos of matadors staring out triumphantly under garish strip lighting. The clientele is mostly elderly so they know what it’s like to live under a dictatorship. There’s a lot of Iberian banter flying around which seems to step up a gear when a man shuffles in, orders an espresso and adds a shot of sambuca. He is closely followed by the Lotto Seller, a potential walking jackpot with three long strips of tickets attached to his coat by bulldog clips. One of the diners springs out of his chair to purchase one, hoping, like all of us, that his luck will be in for 2025. It is 9.22 am and for me, this is when New Year begins. Scoffing bread and cheese in a humble bar that has no website, tucked away in an Andalusian back street. I don’t know anyone. I don’t understand anything that’s happening around me, but one thing I know for sure. I am over it in the UK.
Southern Spain is awash with British tourists, flying in from airports I’ve never even heard of (Prestwick anyone?) and whilst not many venture this far inland, there is a lovely moment of Schadenfreude at Malaga airport where I scoot through on my Irish passport, leaving a snake like trail of compatriots looking perplexed and thunderstruck. Oh well. It’s what so many of them voted for. They’ve already been delayed for five hours due to the fog and now they are being treated like second class citizens from a different country. I wonder when we will ever have a grown-up conversation about this bungled catastrophe, this right-wing stitch-up? Judging by the gutlessness of so many of our politicians, probably not in this generation.
I want to write about Malaga as it is the place that spoke to me most, but if you do decide to visit Cordoba – and you should – stay at Patio De Posadero, a north African inspired boutique hotel of six guest rooms built around an actual Roman wall. Run by Lisa, Jose and a team of women who really get hospitality, it is one of the best hotels I’ve ever stayed in, and that is no hyperbole. Do have a candlelight Hamman, do get to the Mezquita first thing in the morning so you can take photos of the eternal arches without too much human obstruction and do pre-book your ticket up to the Bell Tower because it sells out fast and these are views not to be missed. The best restaurants can be found dotted along the river and the best wanderings are north of the centre, particularly around Barrio San Lorenzo. You will feel lost and bewildered amongst the whitewashed houses with their black grilled windows and red poinsettias, but this is all part of the fun. Cordoba is famous for its patios, so whilst peeking into people’s private gardens is encouraged, the twelve formal Spanish gardens of Palacio de Viana are the height of Andalucian romance and a must see.
The high-speed train between Malaga and Cordoba takes just under an hour and travels through epic mountainous terrain and olive groves. I’ve heard mixed reports on Malaga but on arriving I feel instantly more buoyant. New Year’s Day is always an odd time to arrive in a new town and by 6 pm, exhausted waiters are already looking to close the kitchens. Ravenous, I manage to find a small restaurant still willing to serve me behind the Plaza de la Constitución in an area once regularly frequented by Lorca called Pasaje de Chinitas. A glass of decent rioja and a braised beef cheek stew with fried potatoes costs me a laughable twelve quid. I eat it whilst finishing off Stanley Tucci’s new book ‘What I Ate in A Year’ and am happy. (The last chapter sees Stanley and his brother-in-law visiting Guy Ritchie’s estate for a shooting weekend. As a culinary experience, it’s the most decadent thing you’ve ever read – Guy’s films are like his life – or perhaps it’s the other way round).
No one stints on the Christmas lights in Malaga. These are the Dolly Parton of festive decorations – gaudy, over the top and instantly lovable. I wander back dazzled towards the hotel and discover enroute the other thing Malaga is good at, surprisingly, is gelato. Luccianos uses Argentinian dairy to make flavours you didn’t think existed, and the passionfruit cheesecake is like a party in my mouth. I will, of course, be discussing food more shortly, but first let’s talk about aesthetic.
You do need to angle your camera sometimes in Malaga. It’s not all pretty. For someone who is navigationally challenged, I find having a sea on one side of me reassuring and would recommend a long walk via the glitzy port, through La Malagueta, up to the fishing village of Pedregalejo and finally onto El Palo. You will pass JCB diggers and red and white tape that looks like a crime incident in the sand (it isn’t) but then there will be palm trees, and much quieter, more attractive stretches where local people are exercising in the sun and generally living their best lives (sigh). The draw in this area are the chiringuitos which are beach side restaurants serving fresh fish barbecued over hot coals, with the barbecue makeshift and created out old rowing boats. My two favourites were Gabi Restaurante up at El Palo and Oasis Playa between La Malageuta and Pedregalejo. At both you can eat like a queen and enjoy the best sardines in town for less than 20 euros and at Oasis you also get free cava (if you’re me).
Malaga had a cultural renaissance at the turn of the century and is now seen as a city of museums. Seduced by the lure of twenty degrees in January, I manage to visit only one this time, but am disappointed by Picasso’s birthplace, which gives a sanitised account of everyone’s favourite misogynistic genius. Although I appreciate its maverick brilliance, I do find looking at a lot of Picasso’s art deeply uncomfortable and having listened to a podcast on him recently, I’m now seriously turned off. Give me a Chagall any day. At least he loved his wife.
I decide not to go to the Picasso Museum, supposedly the jewel in Malaga’s artistic crown, and instead take the long hike up to Castillo Gibalfro via the Alcazarba. It’s a brutal climb, but the views are extraordinary and there is a café at the top that looks out to sea and across to North Africa. I sit there for a good long time and think about Morocco and how I haven’t got the balls to do it solo. I do a lot of sitting around thinking about things, mostly from rooftops because Malaguenos are obsessed with drinking free pour gin and tonics on them. Where do I want to be? Do I even know anymore?
On my way back to the airport, my taxi driver says he wouldn’t live anywhere else ‘except here between the mountains and the sea’ and is bewildered as to why the British only go to Torremolinos or Marbella. The city, he says, is best out of season. When I ask what it’s like in June, he tells me the heat that comes in from the Sahara is too much even for the Spaniards, instantly scotching my fledgling plans to rent an apartment here for that month. Perhaps this is a winter retreat after all (although I would go to Marbs for the craic and the hope I would bump into someone fun, like Rylan Clark and his Mum). It leaves some answered questions for this Euro Bird. What about the summer and beyond? There is surely a life on the other side of Zone Five?
I go home and download Duolingo…..
