Andalusia Day 2

After a fitful night’s sleep (Malaga is a lot noisier than our peaceful village in France), we wake to clear blue skies. As the hotel doesn’t do breakfast, we venture out onto the streets of the city, making our way towards the central market to pick up a few supplies for our hike.

Malaga is not the most appealing of cities at first sight, especially as our route to the market takes us along a noisy, heavily trafficked avenue lined with tower blocks. However, after crossing the currently dry river to enter the old city, things begin to look up, with a number of handsome older buildings.

After breakfast at a place which claims to have the world’s best croissants (and they are indeed pretty good), we wander through the magnificent central market with its Moorish entrance and amazing fish stalls.

I need to pick up a pen-knife for our hike – if I’d brought one from France, it would have been confiscated by security in Barcelona before boarding the train to Malaga. Security in Spain has remained strict about such things since the Madrid terrorist attacks and I’ve already had one good knife confiscated. The plan is to buy one in Malaga and then post it home from Nerja before we board another train.

As the knife shop doesn’t open until 10, we carry on wandering through the city centre, passing some impressive buildings, tiled advertisements and old shops until we reach the cathedral, a massive edifice that we decide to put by for a visit when we return to Malaga in just over a week.

We then turn back the way we came. The pleasant thing about the city centre is that it’s entirely pedestrian. I imagine that it’s livelier in the evenings but, at this time of day, the calm is only shattered by the squawking of the green parrots that seem to inhabit every tree.

After picking up a handy pocket knife, we stop off at the central market again for some raisins and almonds where we have a good laugh with the stall-holder after I ask her, in my basic Spanish, for “hairless” almonds rather than blanched ones.

Back at the hotel, we pick up our backpacks and head off to the bus station that is just next to the main railway station, so no distance at all away. The 12 o’clock bus to Periana leaves bang on time, first heading along the sea and past the city’s numerous and very popular beaches, before turning inland at Torre de Mar to head up to Periana via Velez-Malaga. We leave the sea behind and head up into the hills. The temperature in Malaga was already up to 28 degrees when we left but it’s a pleasant 25 in Periana, with a gentle breeze that will take the edge off the heat when we start hiking.

On arriving in the village, we find a restaurant for lunch where the menu del dia – salad (with some amazing tomatoes), starter, main course, dessert and a drink – comes to just 10 euros each. We decide that it’s probably a good idea for our hike to stop for a proper lunch like this in a village along the trail and then just have a few tapas in the evening.

After lunch, we relax on a bench with a great view of the valley below before heading to our accommodation at the scheduled check-in time of 4 pm. We get a warm welcome, in excellent French, from Robert, the young German guy who owns/runs the place and he shows us to a simple but very comfortable room, telling us that we can make the most of the space (and the kitchen) as we’re the only guests. At 43 euros with breakfast, the place is a bargain. Even more so an hour or so later when Robert knocks on our door with two plates of freshly cooked couscous. After the large lunch a couple of hours earlier, we decline the offer, but he says he’ll put them by for us for dinner.

At around 6:30, we go back out for a stroll around Periana. It’s a pretty little place with narrow streets lined with the whitewashed houses that will be a constant feature of the coming days. A wonderful promenade overlooks the valley and the Viñuela reservoir, with the Mediterranean in the background. The temperature is ideal, still warm with a pleasant breeze blowing.

After an excellent vermouth in a local bar, we wander back to our accommodation for our coucous, which turns out to be absolutely delicious.

And, after that, it’s time for bed before the start of our hike tomorrow. It’s another one from the Recto-Verso collection that I worked on last year, five days through the white villages of Andalusia, ending at the sea in Nerja. The first day should be easy, an 11-kilometre hike to Alcaucín. We’ll see…