The Road from Santiago

  We are heading out of town. This will be achieved by heading out to the sea and then along the coast.  Slowly the city will disappear and we will get to the Guadahorce and turn inland to cross it. Amongst the great and the good who have come from Malaga are Pablo Picasso, Antonio Banderas and Luis Bolin.  Solomon ibn Gabirol, poet and philosopher, was born about 1021. Prime Minister Antonio Canovas del Castillo in 1828 and flamenco guitarist Pepe Romero in 1944. Down we go, along the Alameda de Colon to the Monumento de Manuel Aguston Heredia.  He is not the Marques de Heredia - despite what Google says. He was born in Rabanera de Cameros but moved to Malaga when he was 15. Apparently he traded nuts, wine and graphite ore from Gibraltar during the Napoleonic Wars. He got involved in diverse industrial projects in the 20s - especially iron related stuff.  By 1840 he was the leading ironman in Spain, owned two soap factories and 18 merchant ships. In 1844 72% of...

  We left Malaga having been finally Castillianised in 1487. This was not entirely what the locals wanted.  When Ferdinand of Ferdinand and Isabella fame died in 1516 - the place revolted. Personally I’ve always thought of his as charming and dodgy since he was played by Jack May in a Radio 4 play about Joanna the Mad and Ferdinand grabbing power from her. As he also played Nelson Gabriel in the Archers and had black satin sheets, what can you expect?  The result was that the Admiral of Castile was put in charge until 1530. The city grew, despite a 16th century full of epidemics, poor harvests, floods and earthquakes. The 18th century was happier and the general notion of industrial revolutions took hold here - with Spanish Liberalism triumphing. The late 19th century was less happy, with the collapse of the iron, wine and sugar indust ries but the 1960s Costa del Sol tourist boom set things on an upward path. Population wise Malaga numbered 71000 in the 1840s. It hit 137...

  We are going for a walk through Malaga today. It is the real city centre experience - packed through with shops, people and a mildly confusing directions. I remember Burgos had such a thing that you felt you were going one way and small changes lead to a ninety degree misdirect.  Anyway, back to Malaga. Malaga has a population of nearly 600,0 00 people, making it the second largest city in Andalusia and 6th in the county. According to the sort of people who make it their business to know this kind of thing the Phoenicians turned up in 770BC and felt this river mouthed place would make a jolly decent town. From the 6th century before our Lord and Saviour the Carthaginians popped up till, in 218BC, the Romans Romaized the place.  Fast forward through Visigoths and Moors to 1487, when Castile took the place and, as a kingdom that was founded in 1065, conveniently tacked on another 350 years and announced it has reconquered the place. We have lots of Malaga to do and a lot ...