Malaga

THE Spanish artist Pablo Picasso may have left his native Malaga when he was just 14 but his association with the Andalucian city is giving it a cultural kudos on a par with that brought to Bilbao by the Guggenheim museum.
While Malaga's Picasso Museum may not have the architectural wow-factor of the Guggenheim, any building that contains more than 140 paintings, sketches and sculptures by one of the 20th century's most famous artists is guaranteed to be a huge draw.
The Picasso Museum has also had a ripple effect and in the six years since it opened Malaga has grabbed the cultural baton and run with it in a bid to secure the title of European City of Culture in 2016.
It now also boasts a museum of modern art, an interactive museum of music - which is aimed at both adults and kids - and even a museum of wine-making.
Thrown in to the mix are a baroque cathedral, Arab fortress, crumbling castle, theatres and concert venues as well as a unique regional cuisine.
In addition Malaga has the advantage of being just a three-hour hop away from Belfast International Airport.
A good starting point is Malaga Cathedral which was built on the site of a Mosque after the Arab Moors were driven from Spain by the Catholic monarchs in the 16th century.
The Moors had occupied much of Spain for 700 years and their influence can still be seen in terms of architecture, cuisine, place names and even on the Spanish language.
Some churches in Malaga simply took over former mosques and you can still see the outline of minarets and Moorish arches. However, the Cathedral was build from scratch, beginning in 1528.
From outside if you stand back from the main entrance you will see that there is only one tower, the other one is just a stub that was never completed.
A huge choir, with two organs, dominates the cavernous inside and set into the walls on either side are little side churches, dedicated to different saints, with some beautiful icons and paintings.
Most of the main cultural sights in Malaga are within walking distance from one another and about 10 minutes stroll from the cathedral is La Alcazaba, an Arab fortress, parts of which date back to the 700s.
A pathway twists up through the remarkably well-preserved fortifications to where the sultan would have held court. Plants and shrubs and running water help cool the air down during the hottest days, although for those who might find the walk too strenuous there is a lift which takes you to the summit.
You can see why La Alcazaba was built where it was for it provides superb views over Malaga and out to the Mediterranean which used to break at the foot of the fortress but which is now reclaimed land and home to the city's gardens and sea port.
Set even higher than La Alcazaba is Castillo de Gibralfaro, which dates from the 14th century, and while only a few ramparts remain it is worth visiting, once again, for some fantastic views along the coast and the mountains which lie inland.
More and more history is being uncovered in Malaga every day and just a few years ago an excavation at the foot of the La Alcazaba came across some Roman remains.
Since then archaeologists have uncovered an entire amphitheatre, its outline now almost fully exposed again after centuries of being hidden beneath the earth.
Just around the corner is Plaza de la Merced where Picasso was born
in 1881. His former home is open to visitors and contains a number of sketches and sculptures but for a fuller exposition to his work a visit to the Picasso Museum is a must.
The museum has works by Picasso covering every period of his life, from his early, fairly conventional, work through his famous 'rose' and 'blue' periods, examples of 'neo-classicism', 'cubism', flirtations with 'surrealism' and the sexually charged pieces of his later years.
He is one of the best-known artists of the 20th century and his style and themes will be familiar to anyone with even a passing interest in art.
Slightly more challenging is the work on display at Malaga's newly opened Centre of Contemporary Art.
Andy Warhol is probably the best-known artist on display here this autumn alongside Jean Michel Basquiat, Francesco Clemente, Gunter Forg and Gary Hume.
Huge galleries are home to sometimes spartan, occasionally interactive and always challenging works - and it's free in. Another new addition to Malaga's cultural landscape is MIMMA - an interactive music museum which has a collection of 300 instruments from throughout the world, some hundreds of years old.
A number of the instruments can be picked up and played which is great fun if you are the one doing the playing.
Malaga's main shopping Street is the pedestrianised Marques de Larios, with a maze of little side streets and alleys running off it as well. Being a Spanish city there are of course hundreds of cafes, bars and restaurants everywhere you go.
Tapas are a great way to sample a variety of different dishes in a single sitting. Malagan salad is made with potato, cod, onion, orange, olives and oil, and while a combination of asparagus, prawns and scrambled eggs may not sound that appealing it does work. The city also has its own version of Anadalucian favourite gazpacho and a regional variation of paella.
My favourite find was a long, narrow 'bodega' on the main thoroughfare, Alameda Principal. Along its back wall are dozens of barrels piled high on top of one another with a variety of wines ranging from strong, almost sherry-like, to light reds and whites.
The barmen notches up the price of each drink with a piece of chalk on the wooden bar before tallying up your total when you are ready to leave. A food vendor sells a variety of tapas, including prawns and smoked hams. A perfect way to round off a busy day of culture.

(This appeared in The Irish News Travel pages on Saturday November 21. www.irishnews.com)

Jilipollo

One of the pleasures of being a journalist is going on the occasional press trip where a company or organisation will fly you off somewhere in return for some coverage. In the past this has meant trips to Egypt, Jordan, Italy, Denmark, New York, Paris and Turkey to write travel features, to Strasbourg to report on the European Parliament and to Nicaragua to cover the work of the Irish charity Trocaire.
These trips can be challenging, as in my visit to Central America and fairly monotonous as with Strasbourg, but always rewarding.
The press trips to write a travel feature are more fun as journalists tend to be well indulged, taken to all the major sights and the best restaurants so when I was given an opportunity to go to Malaga to research a feature on the Andalucian city's 'cultural tourism' I thought great.
Malaga is a city I've visited often, twice in the last two years. This trip includes visits to the Picassso Museum, Cathedral, castle, gardens and Moorish ruins as well as scheduled stops at tapas bars, top restaurants and winery... yes I'll write that last word again - a winery.
It was an early start this morning, up at 3am, on the road for 3.30 to catch a 6am flight.
By 4.40 I was in the check-in queue and had clocked the two other journos on the trip, by 4.41 I was looking at Sinead's passport in my hands and wondering how the hell I had been so stupid not check that I had lifted the right one.
A quick phone call to Sinead and she was on the road and I was back out of the airport and speeding to a midway point to swap passports and then a mad dash back to Belfast International Airport, back to the carpark, into the terminal building only to be told that the check in had closed and there was no way I was going to catch the flight, even though I was flying at the invitation of the airline.
When I got home I emailed a very grovelling email to the PR company which organised the trip and got a more than sympathetic hearing and and a few hours later confirmation that I have been rebooked to go out tomorrow - although I will be returning late on Saturday.
Anyway as a great philosopher once said 'shit happens'. It will be another early start tomorrow and hanging out in departure lounges and a three-hour flight each way to get there for just over 36 hours in Malaga. But I still regard Spain as a second homeland so hopefully it should be worth it.

Mi vida española

IT'S not easy being Spanish when you haven't got a drop of Spanish blood in your body and live in Ireland - but I try.
My day usually starts with a cafe con leche and a bit of bread while I sit and watch the news on 24H, an online news channel broadcast by Televisión Española. A couple of times a month I will pick up a copy of El Pais (which is usually a day out of date).
Lunch is often paella, tortilla español (potato omelet), sopa Castellano (garlic, egg and chorizo soup), or gambas a la plancha con ensalada (grilled prawns with salad). Sometimes I might have a copa de tinto (small glass of wine) with my lunch.
Other Spanish delicacies are harder to come by. There is a shop in Belfast which sells boquerones (anchovies in vinegar) - but they are absurdly expensive. As for navajas (razor clams) I have never even seen them on a restaurant menu in Ireland.
There is a continental market being held in the centre of Belfast at the minute which sells churros (deep fried strips of donut) but it is not quite the same standing outside in a frosty December and eating them as sitting in warm bar in Madrid with cup of hot chocolate to dip them in.
In terms of music I have a decent selection of Flamenco, Galician traditional music and more contemporary Spanish artists – including Mano Chao, Los Rodrigues, Celtas Cortos – and quite a lot of very dodgy Spanish pop. Thanks to broadband I can also listen to a lot of Spanish radio stations.
I also enjoy Spanish (and South American) cinema and would probably rate the Pedro Almodovar film Hable Con Ella (Talk to Her) as my favourite movie.
I've spent quite a bit of time in Spain, teaching in Madrid and working in the tourism industry in Mallorca and in Andalucia - but that was in the early 1990s. However, I still go back when I can, I was there in June this year, 10 days last year and a fortnight the year before that.
My Spanish is flawed and very ungrammatical but it is a language I am fairly competent in. Technically I should be able to speak Irish at least as well but I lack the confidence to launch into a conversation and worry that I'm using the wrong tense or transposing English idioms.
No such problem with Spanish... if I don't know how to say something I'll find my way around it and have often launched into topics of conversation with absolutely no idea of how I'm going to construct a sentence.
For the most part I find that I am understood and I can usually understand what is being said back - watching Spanish television and listening to the radio has also helped, as has reading the papers, in print and online.
Of course there are nuances of Spanish life that I will never master and like anywhere else there are vast regional differences that tend to be glossed over in the overall outsider’s image of Spain.
I am fairly au-fait with the broader politics concerning the Basque issue and Catalan autonomy but I have found it best to avoid getting involved in debate - it is a bit like an outsider coming to Ireland and launching into a conversation about constitutional issues here.
I occasionally muse on the possibility of going back to live in Spain. Maybe not in Madrid which is a much bigger and much more complicated city than the one I remember, although I'm sure I could adapt.
I quite fancy Malaga. It is on the coast of Andalucia, within easy reach of Seville, Granada and Cordoba as well as the northern coast of Africa. Given the huge ex-pat population living down the coast on the Costa Del Sol and the number of holiday makers who come to the region there would be plenty of work for an English speaker.
But while I enjoy a hot climate I also like a bit of rain now and again and so I think I would be more suited to a northern city - Zaragoza, Valladolid, or even Santiago de Compostella in Galicia.
However, maybe I'm simply deluding myself that is what I want. Could I really live without being close to the Mourne Mountains or my favourite coastal walks.
I have quite a romantic image of Spain and eulogise it because of the memories I have of the times I spent there. But I was in my twenties when I lived there, was much more sociable and enjoyed going out and meeting people. Now I prefer taking it easy with a quiet glass of wine and a bit of music.
No reason why I couldn't do that still but there are other factors - not least Sinead who quite likes Spain but who might not necessarily want to live there.
There is also the danger that I am simply deluding myself that I would prefer life there. I remember a couple of years ago dropping off a hire car at Barajas Airport in Madrid and when the guy who worked in the office saw my passport he started lamenting how he'd spent the best year of his life in Ireland and would love to come back and live here. We almost agreed to swap lives.
I wonder if he wakes up in the morning and makes a cup of tea and toast and has fish fingers with beans or a big greasy fry for lunch and yearns for sausages and champ accompanied by a pint of Guinness for his evening meal?