Journey In God's Amazing Grace: Tuesday in Málaga with Maria!

On Tuesday, we had arranged to meet up with one of my college roommates / apartment-mates, Maria. She and her husband now live in Almuñécar, so when I knew that we would be stopping at a port "nearby", I contacted her and she kindly offered to meet us and give us a tour of Málaga.

We had already arrived at port when we woke up (before 5am) - we looked out and were already stopped.

We had breakfast outside at the Great Outdoors as the sun was just rising.

Some views of Málaga from the Gem

A large private yacht tied up near us - the "Octopus". It has a heliport on the back. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus_(yacht)) It can be chartered for the bargain price of $2.2M/week (https://www.yachtcharterfleet.com/luxury-charter-yacht-23103/octopus.htm). Since we have been wondering where we might settle when we decide to stop RVing, maybe we should consider getting a yacht? But... would we really want one with a heliport?

As we walked into town, we could see the back view of the Gem, one we had not previously seen. The large windows that are lower down (deck 6) are in the main dining room, Grand Pacific. Above that are back facing balcony cabins, and at the top is the Great Outdoors where we had breakfast on Tuesday morning.

Another view of the Octopus - definitely looks like a vessel that James Bond would use!

Glass cube at Centre Pompidou Malaga

We had arranged to meet Maria at the Tourism Office.

Maria had suggested that we eat a healthy breakfast onboard and that she would then take us for an unhealthy breakfast...

...we had churros - dipped in sugar and then into hot chocolate - yummy!

From breakfast, we went to the market... first the seafood area...

Mercado Central de Atarazanas

More seafood

... and yet more!

In another section was the meat market...

... also spices and...

... olives - lots and lots of olives!

Ham available to be sliced off for your needs.

Still another section had fruits and vegetables --

This is a Chirimoya fruit grown in Almuñécar (where Maria lives)...

... about the size of a grapefruit (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherimoya).

Málaga tomatoes - huge and beautiful!

Dragonfruit - all packaged and ready for take away eating!

Carl got some dried pineapple, kiwi, and mango.

We had seen large parking areas of scooters in Cadiz, and now again in Málaga.

We walked down Calle Larios - Calle Marqués de Larios -- a wide walking shopping area in Málaga - evidently is quite decorated at Christmastime. (I looked up and found some information with pictures at Christmas here.)

The buildings looked newer ...

...and the streets wider in Málaga than we had seen in our previous stops.

We came to Constitution Plaza...

There were plaques in the ground showing newspaper headlines about the vote by the population...

... approving the 1978 Constitution, which is still in place.

Heading toward the Cathedral (Catedral de la Encarnación de Málaga) -- you may be able to see that it has one bell tower...

... but the second one (on the right in this picture) was never completed and they decided it was good enough. The cathedral is colloquially known as La Manquita (one-armed lady).

Maria had arranged for us to have pre-paid tickets to enter the cathedral so we could skip the line...

Inside...

Beautiful stained glass windows

Pipe organs

High altar

Sanctuary - ornate decorations on the ceiling too.

Additional stained glass windows

Intricately carved choir stalls

Painting of the beheading of St Paul (it is not known exactly how he died, but tradition indicates that he was beheaded by the Romans).

Mary washing Jesus' feet

Outside in the orange tree garden

Maria and I in the orange tree garden

A busker "statue" - I think he would move if you put money in his donation jar, but he was standing almost perfectly still. You could see his pick-axe swaying a little -- seems it would be hard to hold it up like that for long periods of time!

Maria treated us to Tapas for lunch - what a spread!

Ruins of a Roman theater (Teatro Romano de Málaga) discovered when a new museum was about to be built...

From https://www.andalucia.com/cities/malaga/teatro-romano.htm:

The theatre was rediscovered in 1951, when the construction of Casa de Cultura uncovered the first archaeological clues. The construction of the gardens was abandoned, and instead excavations began. In 1995 a polemic decision was made to demolish the Casa de la Cultura, which stood over a third of the site. Once the site had been fully excavated, a large scale restoration project began, which proved more difficult than anticipated, as many of the missing pieces are now part of the foundations of the neighbouring Alcazaba.

Maria also arranged tickets for us to visit the Alcazaba...