Free Tour, Birthplace of Picasso and Valentine's Dinner

Happy Valentine's Day!  February 14 was a beautiful sunny day, but cooler than we first thought. High was 18C.  We are very happy with our quiet apartment on a pedestrian only street.

Alano outside our apartment building

Another pic-- lovely pattern of stones on the street.

We headed down to Constitution Plaza to meet our Free Tour of Málaga which started at 11:00 a.m.  The Plaza was buzzing with folks trying their hand at basketball as part of the public events for the basketball Copa del Rey.

Hashtag slowly getting spray painted.

Another view of the decorations on the main shopping street

We met our Free Tour at 11:00 a.m.  Nahuel, our guide, is from Málaga and studied history.  He lived for a time in Dublin and his English was very good.  He was one of the best Free Tour guides we have had in recent years.  He spent some time outlining the history of Málaga with all the different civilizations from early Phoenicians, through the Carpathians, Visigoths, Romans, Muslims and Christians.  He talked about the 800 year rule of the Muslims and their influence on the Spanish language, food and culture.  We paused in a narrow street and he pointed out the tiles showing a man with anchovies, a symbol of Málaga.  There was also another tiled picture of the local flower.

We walked to the Catedral de la Encarnación de Málaga, which contained Renaissance, gothic and baroque elements.  It was constructed between 1528 and 1782.

View of the Cathedral in the distance

Nahuel pointed out that due to a lack of funds, the Cathedral was never completed.  He showed us a picture of the original design of the building.  There were supposed to be two towers - the one on the  right was never completed.  There was also supposed to be a pointed roof-- instead it is flat and when it rains, there have been leaks.  Luckily, Málaga has around 330 days of sun a year, so this issue can be lived with.   No one really expects that the Cathedral will be completed.  The Cathedral has been called "La Manquita" meaning "The One-Armed Lady" in English.

The North Tower is the second-highest in Andalusia, after the Giralda of Sevilla.  The South Tower was never finished.

We had a 10 minute break near the famous El Pimpi Bodega bar.  It opened in 1971 and is situated in an old 18th century Málaga mansion.  Its name harkens back to the 'Pimpi', a local Málaga character who used to help the crews and passengers from the ships that arrived at the city's docks.  Antonio Banderas, the actor, who is from Málaga, has a financial interest in El Pimpi.  We were able to walk through the Bodega which was very big and covered with photos of Banderas and other actors.

Graffitti leading into the Plaza with the restaurants

Display

El Pimpi barrels

Outside of Restaurant

We continued the tour to the outside of the Alcazaba ("citadel"), the large fortification build by the Hammudid dynasty in the early 11th century.   Adjacent to the entrance of the Alcazaba are remnants of a Roman theatre dating to the 1st century BC.  Some of the Roman-era materials (including what had been the stage) were reused in the construction of the Alcazaba.  Ferdinand II and Isabella I captured Málaga (1487) after one of the longest sieges in the "Reconquista".  Our guide told us that the Roman amphitheatre remains had been buried and were only found in 1951.

Near entrance to the Alcazaba-- we will return to visit

Roman amphitheatre outside the walls of the Alcazaba

We then went into a building with a very large doorway.  It was a building belonging to one of about 45 Brotherhoods in Málaga, each associated with a Church.  Inside were a silver and a gold chariot used in the Semana Santa- Holy Week-celebrations.  There was a short video of the procession.  The chariots are very heavy and over 200 men carry them.

One of the many Brotherhood buildings in Málaga

The silver and gold chariots--- being prepared for use at Easter

Our final stop was the Museo de Málaga which occupies the space of the old Customs Building, completed in 1791.  The Museum, which in 1972 merged the city's Museums of Fine Arts (1913) and the Museum of Archaeology (1945), moved to the Palacio de la Aduana (Customs Palace) in 2013.

Lovely courtyard of the museum

After the tour, which lasted just over two hours, we went for lunch at Casa Lola.  Casa Lola was recommended by friends in Victoria.  It has three locations.  Our guide also recommended this restaurant and told us that one location not too far away would be easier to get into.  This was indeed the case.  We had a cod tapas, a tortillitas de camarones (shrimp fritter) and a plate of delicious roasted green peppers.

Alano with green peppers

We then walked over to Museo Casa Natal (Picasso's Birth Place), passing lots of folks wearing their respective basketball team's gear.  Málaga is much, much busier in the city centre than Sevilla.  Lots of visitors for the Copa del Rey.

Picasso was born on the first floor (second floor in Canada) of a corner building on the Plaza de la Merced.  The Plaza has been a part of the city since the Roman era.  In the middle of the square is the Monumento a Torrijos (Monument to Torrijos), a 19th century monument in honour of General José Maria Torrijos (1791-1831) and 48 of his companions who were shot to death on order of Ferdinand VII.  Torrijos was involved in an uprising intended to end the absolute power of Ferdinand VII.  He and his companions were shot without trial.

Picasso's birthplace at number 15 

View of Plaza and the monument- Picasso's childhood building is located on the right side of the picture

Pablo Ruiz Picasso was born on October 25, 1881.  The building dates to 1861.  Picasso's parents José Ruiz Blasco (1838-1913) and Maria Picasso López (1855-1938) rented a flat in this building where Picasso was born and lived for the first three years of his life.  They then moved to number 13 on the Plaza where they lived for seven years before they moved to La Coruña in October 1991.  The Pablo Picasso Foundation also has temporary exhibits on the main floor of the building at number 13.  We bought a combined ticket to visit both buildings.

One of the rooms had been the study and was furnished as it might have been during Picasso's early childhood.  There were a number of paintings by his father and some of his father's contemporaries as well as a number of photographs of the family.  One room had Picasso's christening gown and the original key from the front door of the house.

Study

Original key and keyhole of the main door

José Denis Belgrrano (1844-1917) Cape Pass

Juan Corelles Muños (1901-1986) Portrait of Diego Ruiz de Almoguerra, Picasso's grandfather, ca 1870

José Ponce Puente (1862-1931) Portrait of José Ruiz Blasco (Picasso's father) 1886

Painting by Picasso's father--- pigeons and doves often featured in paintings by Picasso

Christening gown and baby shoe that belonged to Picasso  

Baptism Entry 10-11-1881- name underlined

Picasso was christened Pablo, Diego, José, Francisco de Paula, Juan Nepomuceno, Maria de los Remedios, Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad.  His father promised not to have another child with such a name!!!

José Román. Lunch at the lager de Llanes country house.  Picasso is in the chair at the front with his godfathers and cousins 1896

There was a room which featured artifacts that showed Picasso's love of bullfighting and flamenco, two of his father's loves as well.  Though Picasso spent most of his life in Paris and France, he never forgot his origins of Málaga.  In 1966, he was offered French citizenship, which he rejected.  A cape given to him in 1956 by the bullfighter Luis Miguel Dominguin was a prized possession and when he died on April 8, 1973, his widow Jacqueline Roque decided that it would be buried with him.  The Museum had a copy on display.

Picasso, Bull in the arena, Vallauris, 1948

Picasso wearing the Spanish cloak (Life Magazine October 27, 1971)

Album cover of Riches Heures du Flamenco (1969) with artwork by Picasso

Front cover of "Verve" magazine with a"jábega", (a fishing smack from Málaga)

It was a wonderful museum.  As our Free Tour guide pointed out earlier in the day "Do not forget that Picasso was born in Málaga".   His paintings were clearly influenced by the first 10 years of his life spent in the city.

The Plaza

We then walked over to number 13 on the Plaza, which houses temporary exhibits run by the Picasso Foundation.  The present exhibit was entitled Trozo de Piel- Cela- Picasso: passions compartidas (Hunk of Skin: Cela-Picasso- shared passions [Gabarron Collection].

Outside of building

Poster

The exhibit showed the friendship between "two geniuses", Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) and the writer Camilo José Cela (1916-2002), who won a Nobel Prize for Literature.  The exhibit displayed documents and images that showed the passions shared by the two friends that converged in a number of collaborations and projects.

At entrance of the exhibit

Photo of Picasso

Cela and Picasso shared the same nonconformist and provocative character.  Cela's Galician origin also had a link to Picasso who began his studies of Fine Arts in the Galician city of Coruña.   Cela became a cultural agitator through his magazine Papeles de Son Armadans, which he published in Palma de Majorca.   He had wanted to dedicate a special number of the magazine to Picasso and travelled to Cannes to establish contact with Picasso.  He wrote about his first attempts to meet Picasso in a letter to his wife, Charo Conde, on August 1 1958.  Apparently, at first Jacqueline had said that Picasso wasn't there.  When he finally met him the next day, they hit it off.

Picasso was very pleased with the April 1960 issue of the magazine dedicated to him.  There was also a book of poems by Picasso entitled Hunk of Skin (1960)- the name of the exhibit, and other collaborative works.

The edition of the magazine dedicated to Picasso with his signature on the front

Having dinner together

Picasso and Cela 1960

One of the publications that Cela and Picasso worked on together

There was a small room off the main exhibit with posters and some of Picasso's wonderful ceramics.

There was a great poster for an exhibit of Picasso's white plates from 1958.

Wonderful white ceramic plate

Alano looking like the poster

We passed a mural recovered on the Inglesia San Juan Bautista done in the 18th century.  These type of murals were very typical in Málaga during this time.  This mural had a very high level of skill.

We then went for a coffee at Bertani café, recommended by a few blogs.  It was a small place, but the coffee was very good.

After wandering around a bit more, we headed back to Constitution Plaza to check out the basketball scene.  A woman was spray painting the hashtag sign for the Copa del Rey.  We then walked down the main shopping street- Marqués de Larios, which had a lot of photographs of basketball players who play or have played for various Spanish teams.  I recognised a few players who play or have played on teams in the NBA.

Pau Gasol

Luka Doncic (now with the Dallas Mavericks)

 Photos of basketball players and wonderful decorations

We went back to the apartment for a brief rest and then headed out to dinner with our friends David and Vicky, from Ottawa, and two of their friends from London who were visiting Málaga for a long weekend.  We passed the Alcazaba at night-- all lit up.

Alcazaba with Roman amphitheatre in front

We had dinner at the restaurant on the terrace of the Museo de Málaga  called "La Terraza del la Aduana."

View of the Alcazaba from the terrrace!

David and Vicky

Sue, Chris, David, Vicky, Alano and me

The food was fabulous.  David and Sue had the Valentine's menu and the rest of us ordered from the regular menu.  Alano and I shared 4 dishes-- lots of food.

Potato, orange, onion and olive salad

We had already divided the dishes before I remembered to take photos--- fantastic octopus in a wonderful sauce; black cod in a equally interesting sauce and pork cheeks in the far dish.

Chocolate mousse with gold covering that was on the Valentine's menu

A memorable meal and evening spent with friends.