This Mediterranean port just ticks so many boxes – it’s no wonder their tourist office hails it the “All-round city”. I found Málaga also offers easy access to one of the most remarkable hotels I’ve ever stayed at in the hills above.
My base this time in the city is Palacio Solecio (www.palaciosolecio.com), a perfect bolthole and microcosm of Málaga. The hotel is housed in an 18th-century palace, but this being Málaga, it has been given a swish €50 million makeover.
Rooms marry old stone work and hardwoods with the state-of-the-art. The rooftop plunge pool is a joy, as is their excellent Restaurante Balausta, where the lobster tagliatelle with mushrooms is a seasonal treat and perfect with the local Pedro Ximénez white wine, a grape people normally associate with deliciously sweet sherry.
I say the Palacio Solecio is a microcosm because this deeply historic city – founded by the Phoenicians more than 3000 years ago – has also undergone a massive revamp since the 1990s, when it risked playing second fiddle to the burgeoning Costa del Sol resorts.
Massive money has since gone into expanding the metro, pedestrianising the Centro Historico and revamping the waterfront of one of Spain’s busiest ports.
The result of the revamp in turn reminds me of both Glasgow and Dundee, by using the waterfront as a focus and dynamo for change and reinvention.
Muelle Uno is the glitziest part of the waterfront now, a leisure oasis alive with cafés, bars and restaurants (one boasts a Michelin star); museums and public art too. Tour boats busy out around the harbour. I join one of the City Sightseeing cruises that comes with my hop-on and hop-off bus pass, which works really well.
Despite the glitz of the new, it’s the old sides of Málaga I keep getting drawn back to. I love that the Roman Amphitheatre is free. It’s the gateway to the rugged Gibralfaro hill. Trails snake up its sides to the Moorish Alcazaba Palace (a mini Alhambra) and the rugged castle that hangs omnipresent above it all.
This is my favourite place in Málaga for peering down, appreciating the glorious marriage of mountain and sea that is a huge part of Málaga’s appeal.
Also part of Málaga’s appeal are more than 30 museums, a tempting necklace of sandy beaches running for miles to the east and west, a currently fair to middling football team (not something unusual in Scotland these days), and the OXO video game museum, one of the most family-friendly museums I’ve ever been to. Three floors burst with computer game action, from vintage ZX Spectrums through to old arcade consoles and high-tech virtual reality headsets. The story of the evolution of gaming is told in hands-on, massively fun style. Very Málaga.
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Also very Málaga are the beaches, with the worship of the Mediterranean inexorably bound into the local culture. My favourite section is around the suburb of El Palo east of the centre. I meet an old ex-pat pal for lunch. Munching on those signature wood-smoked sardines that Málaga is famous for throughout Spain, the still-warm in autumn water tempts after our seriously cheap meal.
“Why would you want to live in another Spanish city?” he asks and I don’t have an immediate answer.
Málaga is also a city that opens up myriad choices of destinations on its doorstep. Head down the coast to the Costa del Sol resorts, even further to the geopolitical anomaly of Gibraltar.
Or into the hinterland for Granada’s jaw-dropping Alhambra palace, maybe the gorgeous gorge of Ronda, or Teba with its annual Scottish festival? Africa lies just a ferry ride away at this real crossroads.
I chose a couple of days immersed in the charms of Finca La Bobadilla (www.fincalabobadilla.com). I’ve been staying at Spanish hotels for three decades and there really is nothing like this wonder. The vision of a Swiss doctor with a dream, he imagined his perfect Andalusian hotel, or more village.
This is no mere finca. Where else can you enjoy a free yoga session in a church, one that boasts the largest organ of any unconsecrated church in Europe?
I also ease off around vineyards on horseback and bash around a pickleball, a new sport for me. Then there is the massive pool (still warm in late October), the terrapin pond and the superb massage treatments that complemented the thermal suite.
The finca’s restaurants are superb too. Bar La Plaza is great for relaxed tapas and a local Victoria beer, while El Mirador comes with a view out over the hotel’s rich fauna towards the rugged hills of Málaga’s hinterland.
Its highlights are both rice dishes – one made with pork and one seafood, washed down with an excellent Málaga region wine. The foodie stand-out is their Michelin-starred restaurant, where the tasting menu is one of the best I’ve had in Spain, alive with local produce.
See what I mean about Málaga and its surrounds ticking all the boxes?
easyJet (www.easyjet.com) flies to Málaga from a number of Scottish airports