Random thoughts on the past 33 days

Morocco. Tick. Extra tick for doing it on a bike.

Tiz is a super trooper. How else would you describe someone that has only been a pillion twice and volunteers to do a circuit of Morocco, on the back of a bike ridden by a guy that nearly killed himself on one only a little over six months ago? A wonder-woman, a little bit crazy, an adventurer, a supportive partner way beyond the call of duty.

Only very recently did I change my mind about Paris, rating it as one of the most liveable cities in Europe. We visited Barcelona, and Paris dropped way down the list.

Paris is still a great place.

I should not have chosen a BMW R1200 GS Adventure as the bike to do a lap of Morocco.
It's too high and I'm too weak. At 260kgs plus gear and rider/pillion it's very hard to control on your tippy toes.
It has an enormous amount of torque and it is very forgiving.
Dropping it, at a standstill, leaves hardly any noticeable scratches, so as to diminish its resale value.

We met some absolutely wonderful people on our trip.  I hope we stay in touch with some of them.

Drivers in Fez are to be feared. Actually, the whole of Morocco behaves like they want to commit aggravated vehicular assault, all the time.

Spanish food is my current favourite.

The sun in the northern hemisphere doesn't burn like our Aussie sun.

I read, on Nic J's recommendation,  "Do Travel Writers Go To Hell?" by Thomas Kohnstamm. A very funny and exposing read on travel writers and the Lonely Planet.

I also read "Black Leather Barbarian" by Joe Colella. A great read about being in a bike club in the '70's in Adelaide. I enjoyed the many parallels as I read it, and enjoyed it even more as I have met and "broken bread" with Joe.

Jemaa El-Fna night market in Marrakesh show how a place can easily become a victim of its own success and others' hype. It is truly awfully over commercialised.

We need to move from one tapas bar to another instead of settling into just one, next time.

We Australians live in the best country in the world and we need to start appreciating it.
Not the one with the most sights all within easy access.
Not the one with the most art.
Not the one with the most historical buildings.

Zurriola Beach in San Sebastian has some of the cleanest right and left 6' waves I've seen.
It's great to sit there on the sea wall watching the locals rip 'em up.

It's hard, and nigh on impossible, to beat a souk stall owner at his own game, namely - bargaining.

Moroccan food can be badly done, and often is, in its country of origin.

There is good beer and better beer.

Spaniards are extremely good motorcyclists.

Some older Swiss guys are even better motorcyclists. Some may consider their gumption and bravado to be bordering on insane.

Hong Kong was better before it's return to Chinese rule and the internet.

My tolerance for the cold has increased and decreased for humidity.

We must try to make it to Montreux Music Festival and pay homage to the man that started it in 1967, Funky Claude Nobs.
Deep Purples song "Smoke on the Water" is about the 1971 fire that nearly brought it to a premature end. This thought ties in with our Swiss riding companions telling us of how much they looked forward to going to this years' event.

I need to edit the hours of videos taken in the Morocco lap and, in conjunction with the .gpx file, finish my mini doco, quickly.

Tiz and I travel far better, as in lose less sleep, when going west compared to going east.

Why was that guy sitting on that rock in the middle of Moroccan flatland nowhere?

Is anyone going to believe that after nearly 2000 kms through Morocco we only saw two camels, and they were in the back of a ute?

Starbucks staff seem to be universally lame at providing service.
We know this because it was one of the rare places we could get coffee in Hong Kong.

Pret A Manger, a London based fresh organic lunch food shop is the polar opposite. You want to lean over the counter and give the staff a big hug for being so genuinely cheerful.

Cordoba is a smallish town with a lot of character but gets much less press that its more famous neighbours - Sevilla and Granada. We loved the leafy walk done to the cluster of famous sites.

We need a very fast train between capital cities, like most civilised countries have.

The more hardcore part of the crew in Morocco would love the Finke Desert Race. It is renowned for crushing spirit, body and equipment.

..... I'll think of more as the days pass.

Please come back for a look but even if you can't thank you for having dropped in for a look and hopefully a laugh.

Cheers, from Marino and Tiziana

Hong Kong Melbourne Monday 9th Tuesday 10th

Tizs original idea was to spend a few days in HK to wind down from the whole hectic trip before getting home.
It was far from a wind down trying to do anything in HK.
The once non-existent language barrier, the out of sync (to us) schedules of transport etc., the fact that you no longer get a bargain in HK (for which I've already thanked the internet for), the lack of planning of what to do and how to do it, the sweltering humidity (which really caught me off guard) made it less of a break than we had hoped.

We had spoken about trying to head out to Macau today, even if it was just to enjoy the ferry, but given our lack of success with other plans and forms of transport we decided to sleep in and take out time getting to the airport.

Ultimately, it was the wisest thing we'd done in Hong Kong.
We had some coffee down the street.
We repacked our (OK, OK - my) ever expanding pack, making sure that only the most necessary of items ended up in our carry on backpacks.
Necessary as in ALL the phones, ALL the power packs, ALL the USB leads for ALL the previously mentioned equipment, a laptop, a few sets of headphones, something analog and really old school - a book, documents to get out of China (yes this place is part of China despite the different systems, IT IS CHINA), wallet with four currencies (don't ask!).
These few necessary items reminded me of the backpack a work colleague carries on his back to run around the Carlton Gardens \to train for some excruciating torture marathon I think they call the MUTHA, or something similar.

We did Ok, again with more thanks to ?Tis than I deserve.
Where did the days of packing three t-shirts and 3 pairs of undies to
to go to London for an indefinite amount of time go?!

We took our bags to the Kowloon Airport express for an early check in and were rid of them by midday.
Our flight wasn't due to board until 19:45 so we had at least seven hours to kill, or enjoy, in HK.
Whilst we were in this huge complex, which housed the Airport Express Check in and train station to the airport we thought we would go for a look around and maybe get a bite to eat.

This place was simply massive.
From the look of the people that were wandering about I would say it had a lot of office and businesses above the seven storeys of shops we walked past.
These seven storeys had almost every imaginable high end shop.
Jimmy Choo, Porsche Design, Ermenegildo Zegna, YSL, Cerutti, Louis Vitton,. Rolex etc. etc.
The "poverty" shops like Zara, H & M and the like were not left out either.  
It had ~30 good eateries.
It had a full size ice hockey rink, for gods sake, and who knows what else that we din't get around to seeing.

After some lunch we caught the train to the airport.
This is not just "a Train" as we know them.
This thing is very very comfortable, with wifi AND fast.
How fast? Can't say with any certainty as it didn't display it's speed like the Spanish one but it felt every bit as fast!
So now we're at the airport with quite a few hour still to go before the "flying bus" leaves for home.

We thought we might catch an IMAX movie but we got there 10 minutes late.
Tiz and I had read that around gates 23 and 26 there were reclining lounges. WE just had to see if it was true, so off we went to verify.

Walking, travelating, walking, travelating, walking some more and then we see Gate 23 off in the distance.
With palpable anticipation we approached it looking hard to spot the recliners ..... nothing but a change in seat colours!
I've tried to sell this change in seat colours as a "pretty good thing and almost as good as a recliner!" to Tiz but she's not buying my bullshit!
With the disappointed look of a kid that has witnessed Santa get shot through the head She says " I was so looking forward to being able to lay down in a recliner to get some sleep."
Now I feel like the guy that shot Santa and in my most upbeat, and utterly convincing voice I say to her "I think they were all moved to Gate 26"
A little more walking, a little more travelating and we get very close to Gate 26 and with a little looking we spot the Holy Grail of non-lounge members - The Recliners , for standard punters!

People don't seem to stay in them too long as they seem to discover them 20 minutes before having to board.
We clung to our two for over two hours. We would have probable\y stayed longer but nature called, and there's no dibs or reserving or holding onto them. If your derriere isn't firmly planted in one then it's not yours.

It was getting around "pensioners dinner time", ~17:00 so we thought we would head off t find a bite to eat.

Have I mentioned, or do you know, how big this place is?

The eating area, just in Terminal 2, the international one, must have 20 restaurants and seating for many many hundreds.
That just in the main eating area and I'm not including the countless fast food/coffee (if you can call it that) place that are dotted through the whole airport.

We had some noodles, soup and roast goose (done in a similar way the Chinese do duck, in Australia).
I have to admit that I really liked it. I can't imagine ever saying that about a meal that I would eat at an Australian airport.

Oops, I forgot - they also had wee little cans of Asahi beer. Those can are just like real ones, only irritatingly smaller ..... and I had one.

We exchanged our remaining HK$ into real wholesome spendable money, submitted ourselves to to complete body and cavity check and board the plane.
I'm kidding about the check.

In roughly 10 hours, depending on airstreams, erupting volcanoes around the Indo/Phillipine area, the possibility of being mistaken for something like
the MH370 flight by "unknown" aircraft etc.etc. we will be at Tullamarine by a little before 08:00 on Tuesday morning.

Angus volunteered to come and pick us up.
It was Angus' first time driving to the airport and it highlighted what a mess that place is.

Hong Kong - Sunday 8th

We got this morning feeling ever so slightly better than when went to bed last night.
We had planned to go to Macau to eat at a place called Fernando's
It is yet another joint we had seen on one of Anthony Bourdains shows and rates somewhere between shitful and quite good on TripAdvisor with the majority of the reviews swinging towards the better end.

One thing I discovered about this place is that getting around is not that easy.
Yes, I'd be happy to discuss this with anyone that disagrees, but I'll be doing face to face.

We went down to the China Ferry Terminal in Kowloon , a good 25 minutes walk away, only to discover that the ferries run less frequently on Sundays, and even less again after midday.
We had arrived at the ticket counter at 12:05.
WE would have been lucky to get to the restaurant by 3 in the afternoon.
This would have been OK if we were in Spain, but we weren't.
We decided to try again tomorrow.

Plan B was to get a bite to eat locally and then go to see the 10,000 Buddhas Temple only a short 15 minutes drive away by cab.

As we walked up Nathan Road the humidity was reaching new levels.
The level that really knocks me, and Tiz, about.
This is very interesting, especially given that until today I've always enjoyed very high humidity to go along with the high temperatures, that I also like.
I fear that yet again I may be contradicting the way I define myself.

Tiz was now getting pale and decided that we were going to go into the first eating place we could find.
Only a few steps further were blessed with a sandwich board displaying all sorts of food type pictures and all were graced with thousands of Chinese characters and not a single solitary Latin based one.

We walked up the steps, through the doors and were greeted with a "Hello, second floor."
The girl with the smile knew what we had come in for.

As we stepped out of the lift we were met with ~100 pairs of eyes, all looking at the only two pairs that were round.
"G'day folks. I'm sure youse have got some grouse Chinese tucker here!" is what I was thinking.
What we did was - go straight to the table we were directed to and sat down.
We proceeded to have a very good dim-sum meal that reminded us of how lucky we are to have places like the Golden Leaf in Preston.
Why are we lucky?
Because we are in China, in a restaurant full of locals and the tucker is exactly the same as we get in Preston, and at about the same price. The cans of beer were small though.

After enjoying a lunch in air-conditioned comfort we went back to the apartment where I prepared myself to get to the 10,000 Buddhas Temple.
I say "prepared" because I had a gut feeling that it was not going to go as easily as it might have in a Latin based speaking country.
I was right.
Despite my having a map and the location, in Cantonese, we struck one and then another cab driver that responded with "Sorry, #*&^%".
I couldn't figure out what was wrong but I knew that we were not going to get to the Temple today.

A good dose of extraordinarily high humidity and the frustration caused by not being able to communicate with the locals, for the very first time I can remember, was enough for me to give up.
We were here to chill out before going home and "chillin' out" I wasn't, at this point.

The best thing to do was go for a walk and keep with a reasonable distance from the apartment.
If the heat and humidity got too high we could take a break from counting Chow Tai Fook shops and go back, turn the aircon on to "Sub-zero/Dry" and relax.

It was a plan that worked for the better.

As night approached hunger visited again. How does one get hungry by doing near nothing all day?!

We crossed Nathan Road to visit some of the markets our host had told us about.
The ones that look like they're cheap, but none of the locals shop there because they are too dear.
*Marino looks confused*

I know that memory is a very subjective and unreliable tool to record history but I'm quite sure that this place has change a lot since I was last here and especially since it was handed back to the original owners.
Where there was once a complete multistory tower block selling, let's say, watches you now find almost every shop selling a variety of unrelated goods.
"Come in sir/madam, we have copy watches and handbags.", is an invitation you will often receive from a spruiker that you just know comes from the Indian subcontinent, and if you're foolish enough to go in for a purchase you'll find the watches, or handbags, interspersed with mens shavers, S5 smartphones, dried abalone (don't laugh), black cotton swabs, and list goes on.
What happened to the buildings that housed 400 camera shops, and only camera shops?
Or computers? Or just phones?

Is the internet to blame? I don't know either, but we need to find something to blame for all this chaos!

We walked around for a while and decided to try a sushi train place that looked good earlier on.
It must have been very good, because there was a queue waiting to get in and I was not going to do "queue to eat tonight".
We kept walking and found another sushi train place that wasn't all lit up, bright white and too hip for its own good.
We had a feast, but not as big as these family or petite locals sitting next to us.
I didn't think that these three very slender bodies could consume as much as they did!
It was great to see as these three made me look moderate, in my consumption.

As we stepped out the rain started. Wet but warm. This is a strange place indeed.

Here's a riddle for you-

What's the difference between the picture on the left and the one on the right? 

The answer is - 

100 meters, 10 minutes and 1% of humidity 

(1% is all that's needed from you being your own shower, inside your close,

to the skies providing external moisture to keep you drenched.) 

Earlier on in the night I was thinking "This place is like the early scene in Bladerunner where Deckard is eating at the ricebox truck, but without the rain and with a load more ambient light."

Now I would omit the "..... without the rain....." part.

As we walked "home", and even earlier in the eveneing, we came across quite a few stalls like these -

many with long queues and selling skewers of snacky, bites size stuff like this

One type of snack seemed much more popular than the rest. 

It was a round deep fried ball of "stuff", about the size of a ping pong ball, 4 per skewer. 

Tiz was curious as it to what it was.

I'm sure it was soylent green.

It's near midnight and we're going to try to get some sleep.

More tomorrow.   

    

Paris Friday 6th - Hong Kong Saturday 7th

We had a late leave, 13:45, from Paris on a China East Airline flight.
It was going to go to Shanghai's Pudong Airport to get to Hong Kong.
Unfortunately "the system" would not allow our bags to go through to Hong Kong which meant we had to go through customs and passport checks to get our bags at Pudong.
We would then check back in at Pudong to get back on the flight to Hong Kong.
"The system" needs fixing because it was a real pain in the derriere.

But back to Paris for a moment. Predictably we were only two of a very small number of Europeans on  the passenger list.

The Chinese, if you had missed it, are now cashed up and travel quite a bit.
They have yet to learn to do it quietly as check-in queues bear more resemblance to a fish market, noise wise, than an orderly airport terminal.
By and large they also have no personal space requirement and often will bump you out of the way if you stand between them and a place they are going to.
Coughing, sneezing without covering up your mouth.
Being very loud on your mobile, anywhere and everywhere..
All good! Welcome to China, round eyed person!
 It's a different culture and one that take a little getting used to.  

At Pudong we enjoyed a display of Chinese Customs officiousness.
Not overly worrying but when you add a 24 hour no sleep period into the mix it was awfully difficult to smile and be polite.
It reminded me of the customs guys in Tangier but without the threatening looks or the multiple locations to have your papers looked at or the constant thought of ending up in a back room cage with Bubba Abdul if you were found to be contravening some unknown, to you, law.

We finally arrived at Hong Kong at 13:45 on Saturday. Tired and in desperate need of sleep.
We caught the A21 bus into Mong Kok, which was a 40 minute ride, for AU$7  (but AU$2.50 for me, 'cos I'm a "senior citizen"!).

Buses here have reliable fast wifi. VicGov, are you listening? In fact, is anyone in Australia listening?

We got off at the Sino Centre, which is about half way up the well known, especially to shopaholics, Nathan Road.
I like to pick a point of reference when I first arrived at an apartment or hotel, just in case I go walkabout and lose my bearings.
I looked around and saw a jewelry shop called Chow Tai Fook Jewelry.
"Yep, that's easy enough to remember. I not get lost here."
Hahahaha. There are close to 1000, and probably more, Chow Tai Fook Jewelry shops in Hong Kong, and never more than 200 meters and almost always less.

There was a spot where one would have to walk more that 200 meters to find a Chow Tai Fook store,

so they're going to rectify that major Hong Kongese problem! 

It is peculiar! How much jewelry is bought in this town?
No matter how you try to explain it, there is something NQR here.

It's similar to "that" take-away food shop that the "insert appropriate nationality" own down the road.
You know, the one that never seems to have anyone in it, apart from shady looking characters who never stay there long enough to order anything. Yes, the one that the owner drives an AMG Merc.

You get my drift?

This town has a lot of "interesting" jewelry stores.

Our landlady meets us and walks us to the apartment which is only two short blocks away.

It's a little place but clean and well set out.
We're here for two nights so it will do fine.
As we put our bags down we are both struck by a wave of tiredness.
Neither of us travel east all that well, and you throw traveling "cattle class" into the mix it magnifies the effect.
We laid down for a few hours and got some much needed sleep.

Later that night we ate at a place where we the only ones that weren't squinting.
Seven types of meats, hacked neatly with a cleaver, steamed green stuff (I'm sure it had never had a heartbeat, so it filled the vegetable requirement my lovely girl had) with garlic by the bucket load and a large beer + iced tea made up dinner.

No pics today because ....... well, because it was a god awful boring day commuting on the big flying bus and then the double-decker bus full of people using it as their own form of heavy haulage transporter  and we just couldn't be bothered.







  

Malaga Paris - Thursday 5th

We were up nice and early to make sure were packed & at the airport on time.
Somehow my gear seemed to have swelled!
Although I do not recommend it to anyone else, I found that swearing & brute strength will decrease the volume of a given mass.
That, and a girlfriend with the patience of a saint and the ability to pack her luggage properly, & therefore make space for my "swollen" stuff, also help.
 
I am not that used to using public transport at home but I think that if it were as easy to use, convenient & clean as it is here I may use it more often.
We got to the airport with enough time to have a coffee. This coffee was so strong it made my hair curl(ier) & put hairs on the chest of a girl standing near, me!

Travelling on a plane is always a crap shoot, unless you always travel at the pointy end and never on a budget airline, and sometimes you throw "snake eyes".

The flight from Malaga to Paris was our "snake eyes"

Tiz got seat 13A and I got seat 13B on a A319 Easyjet flight.
In seat 14A was a guy that between coughing fits, which were so forceful both Tiz and I felt a constant breeze across our necks, would NOT shut up.
Cough cough cough blah blah blah cough cough cough blah blah etc etc
Next to him, in 14B, was a ~3 year old that needed some "special" attention. By "special", I mean hard, often and across his behind. Or maybe he needed more love or maybe more Phenergan or something, anything that would stop him from being the incarnation of Beelzebub sitting behind me.
This kid had real anger issues which manifested themselves in his kicking and belting the back of my seat the whole trip.
14C was inhabited by the mother of aforementioned spawn-of-the-devil who pampered this spoilt little sh!t instead of giving him a crack across the bottom and telling him to behave.

Two hours of this was almost enough to have the ever patient Tiz get up and complain.
I showed an inordinate amount of self control and put up with it and made it to Paris without either of us being charged for aerial affray.

Everything in life has an amusing twist, if you look for it. and this incident did as well.
To explain.
Years ago I knew an individual who liked to torture people.
He was an abject workplace psychopath who I hold almost entirely responsible for the near death (I kid you not!) and mental breakdown of several of his co-workers.
He has continued his callous and duplicitous ways for years, without a moment of remorse.
He was described by another victim as having "a face that you could never get tired of punching"
Let's call him Mr. Won't-Less.
Mr. Coughing Blah Blah Coughing was his near clone.
That made me laugh.
What else can one do in a situation like this?
You need to remember the words from a line in a song from Depeche Mode -
"I don't want to start any blasphemous rumours
But I think that God's got a sick sense of humor
And when I die I expect to find Him laughing."

     He's coughing, you just can't tell in a still picture!

Should you ever be in Europe and notice that is man, with a Spanish accent, is about to board the same plane as you, don't risk it.
Hand him a bag of anti-cough drops, a packet of tissues and then walk to where ever you're going.
You'll be better off.

Should you come across an individual that looks like the man above, in Melbourne and with a non-Australian English speaking accent, run away before he tortures you into a medical/mental institution as well.  
You'll be better off.

We made it to Paris and into our little hotel without any problems.
We paid "city tax" which made me ask the receptionist "That's cute, what is it?"
As a response she smiled then laughed!
OK, then.

We are only staying overnight and didn't want or need to head into Paris for just a few hours so we chose a hotel near the airport.
Ours was on the very edge of Roissy-en-France.
As we discovered, after a quick bit to eat, this little village was one of those once remote but quaint villages that had adapted well to the huge airport that came so close after century of the villages existence.

It has some beautiful gardens and half a dozen seemingly nice brasseries within 15 minutes walk of the hotel.
We chose to eat at Madame Est Servie tonight.

We sat down and were immediately approached by a waiter, who spoke quite good English, as one would expect from a waiter in a little restaurant in a small French village.

He presented us with our menus and immediately apologised for the fact that one of the dishes, on the menu, was not available tonight.

Kangaroo!

Tiz and I just laughed and explained that, being Aussies, it wasn't that great a disappointment.
The waiter had good laugh along with us.

We ordered three starters - Foie gras with beetroot, salmon and goats cheese and mozarella and tomato salad, all served up with typical modern French flair.
A bottle of a Provence rose washed it down.

A great and unexpected meal in a little village and we out of there before most Spaniards had started their mains!

It was a few minutes to 10 -

   Tiz, at 10pm in Roissy.

You just have to love European spring!

We walked the long way back to the hotel and we are going to try to get an early night.

 

¡ADVERTENCIA SOBRE ESPAÑA!

¡WARNING ABOUT SPAIN!

If you tick any of the following - 

[  ] I have a heartbeat

[  ] I am single

[  ] I am attracted to males and/or females

[  ] I drink alcohol

[  ] I like to party

[  ] I ride a motorcycle

[  ] I have considered going very fast in/on some forms of transport

[  ] I may be tempted to try substances which may be illegal in the country I normally reside

[  ] I tend to overindulge when the food is very good

* SPAIN IS NOT FOR YOU! *

Spain will satisfy your every want and invite you to excesses that you can only dream about.

You have been warned.

Ignore this public service warning at your own peril.

(Editors note - Thankfully, I am strong-willed, moderate, law abiding and God fearing to a fault, therefore I need not worry about the many temptations that Spain offers.)  

Malaga and Cordoba - Wednesday 4th

Wow, I'm finally up to date with the blog!
By up to date I mean that I am entering the days proceedings on the day.
It's been difficult to get all the pics I've wanted to share due to the difficulty of working with a smallish notebook, let alone editing and posting videos.

It's such a first world problem!!

I will certainly add to it over the next few and hope that it's many followers come back to read the completed article.

We woke up quite refreshed this morning, thankfully.

Being creatures of habit, and loving good coffee, we visited San Martins and then poped into the market to buy some fruit for the days trek through Cordoba.
The ticket said the train left at 08:40 and we were in coach 27, of 32.

 

After going through the obligatory x-ray bag check and two ticket checks we took the long walk down to our coach, aka carriage.
Tickets for these RENFE train are not cheap, at ~€60 return trip Malaga - Cordoba, but they are well appointed, as in the have a bar and eatery, and comfortable.

They also do 300kph+

    

Yes, I know that there are other trains that go faster but going 300kph in something that is land bound is always exciting!

The trip saw us go buy many manicured fields of sunflowers, which were obvious, and vegetables, which were less obvious due to the speed ..... woohoo!!

Olive trees. So many olive trees. It's small wonder that Spain produces so much olive oil!

It looks spectacular as you whizz past at 300kph in a train so it can only look better from the sky.

I just went and looked at it on Google Earth and it looks really dry and crappy! *Sad look*

We got there in an hour. A great way to do ~160 kms.

When we got there it was in the mid 20's with a cool breeze. It made a pleasant from Sevilles exhausting mid 30's.

There is wide heavily tree'd parkway from the train station to the main tourist sitesselves  which makes the walk very enjoyable.

We had armed ourselves with some hop on/hop off tour bus map and the Cordoba Tourist Information map, which we used along with Google maps on our phone to make the next 3 hours an easy and comprehensive day.

It's not a big city and despite a lot of reviews suggesting it wasn't worth visiting we found it very enjoyable. 

It must be an easy city to walk around too as there were more than their fair share of "older" tourists, including one bloke with a zimmer frame. More power to him, I say.

Here's some pics of our visit - 

Me trying to look elegant with my right foot in model mode and 

carrying my handbag in the new over-the-bent-elbow style, on the old Roman bridge

A picture tells a thousand words.

(Credit to Larson for the original cartoon idea)

We ended up seeing quite a bit of the city in the 3 hours we were there and made it back to the train with time to spare.

We made it back to Malaga in time to get to the market and put together a €8 lunch pack.

   A slab of Brie along with an equally large portion of pâté, 

a bread stick large enough to build a bridge over a small creek,

two deliciously ripe sweet figs and an equally delightful peach

AND

beer.

The civilised Spaniards have 540ml cans of beer. 

This is surely a great time saving idea as opening a second can, when thirsty, is just a waste of time.

Why open two cans to drink 540mls when you could just open one? 

It's our last night in Malaga and it's nearly 20:00.

......and we're back from an early dinner. It's 23:00.
More sangria, more pintxos/tapas and a little ice-cream to finish off the night

What time is it Tiz?

It's - I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice-cream - time!

¡Adiós por ahora, mis amigos!

À bientôt

Malaga - Tuesday 3rd

We had originally planned to visit Granada and Alahambra today.
It didn't work out that way. Aside from the fact that I had procrastinated about buying tickets, for months, we also totally worn out from our visit in Seville.
As a way of diminishing any disappointment I convinced both Tiz and myself that it is possible to absorb, and enjoy, only so much Moorish / Spanish mid-11th century p:30 alaces and architecture.
We were going to be better off for the rest day ahead. And rest we did.
We slept in until 10:30. It isn't always necessary to get up at he crack of dawn and cram in doing stuff for every hour of the day, when on holidays.
I didn't want to begin my holidays as a tired hack, as we so often do, but I also don't want to get home from our holiday completely exhausted either.

We walked over to the San Martin coffee shop, over the road, and had another round of some of the best coffee we have had in Spain.
This is a peculiarity about Spain that I would not have believed before coming here - Spaniards are not coffee drinkers. At least not in the quantities or with the passion that Australians and Italians are.

We finally had the opportunity to visit Mercado Atarazanas which was open today.
Here are the pics from the web and below are the pics we took.

The Malaganos, and Spaniards in general, prepackage prepared ready-to-eat fish, such as white anchovy's, octopus, cod etc. 

It was nearly midday, and without doubt midday somewhere in the world, which made it perfectly acceptable to have a beer at one of the market stalls.

These Spaniards are so civilised with their liquor laws. 

A plate of marinated white anchovy's, garlic marinated olives, a basket of bread and a beer.

Beats muesli for breakfast, hands down! 

The high leadlighting is beautiful

 The following shots show how meticulously they display there food

Finally, as the Spaniards are real sweet-tooths one rarely sees anything bitter.

73% cocao chocolate is rare, but was sold here.

We had enjoyed the market and now it was time to "get about and do something".

The hop on / hop off tour bus looked like a good option and that's what we did.

It was as always, despite my criticism of these sorts of "touristy" services, a great way to see a lot of the city.

From the city beaches past the cruise liners in the port up the mountain that overlooks Malaga and down and around its elaborate and history filled churches. 

We enjoyed it all from the top desk and front seats!

It had been a very exhausting day. Hardcore resting can be quite exhausting, so we decided to head back to our room for some "real" rest.

As the day wore out we had a major decision to make - Where to eat?

This is not a decision to be taken lightly and much discussion followed. 

Being the forward thinker that I am, I suggested that we could try El Pimpi again.

Even if we didn't get in we would be ideally placed to see the Roman amphitheater of a night, which is quite beautiful, or so we were told by a Swiss man we had met.

We took a casual stroll weaving our way through as many yet untravelled alleyways to the famous eatery.

A quiet early evening in Calle Marqués de Larios

We entered through the smallish, unassuming Calle Grande doorway, past the myriad of century old bars, up and around several sets of small steps and finally out to there rear courtyyard.

Thankfully it was not packed. We should not have been surprised as it was ridiculously early for dinner.

It was 20:40! Not even kids eat dinner this early in Spain!

We sat at a table and ordered some house wine, which in place is pretty damn good.

Tomato salad (with a good drenching of oil), a plate of jamón (which is national obsession) and manchego cheese and finally a bowl of ajoblanco. 

That should do, for starters.   

Ajoblanco (the El Pimpi version) is made of bread, crushed almonds and their milk, garlic, water, olive oil, salt, apple, raisins and pine nuts. 

It's served cold, as gazpacho is, and it is wonderful!

 Our waitress also doubled up as a sherry pourer.

The pouring of sherry is done with a cup on the end of long handle and swung in a big arc 

before being "long poured" into a small glass. Lots of show-person-ship.

My main was slow braised pork cheeks.

God eats this dish on special occasion, so it'll be good enough for me.

This is what I called the McEl Pimpi.

The top part simply reminds me of an American chain, with all its plastic and easy to clean surfaces.

I guess when you've been surrounded by centuries old wood and gorgeous ceramics and beautiful oil paintings by the like of Pablo and Salvador, for generations you pine for something different, even if it is crass white plastic.  

There is always a good reason to have a Fiesta di Cerveza.

This one is because more beer needs to be drunk between 6th and 15th of June, I think.

I will have already done my part for the beer consumption in Spain for 2014, and cannot attend.

After a long slow dinner, which we purposely made long and slow as this was going to be the last time we were going to eat at El Pimpi and we wanted to "savour the moment", we walked to the Roman amphitheater. Here are some pics.

As we walked through the back alleys we came across this view. I can't remember which church it is but it was a nice sight in the night sky.

We were soon home and into bed for an early night, as it was before midnight, as tomorrow was to be our last full day in Spain and we still had Cordoba to do