Fiesta de la 'Cruz de Flor' plus Sabor de Malaga

For once, getting earlier to bed proved beneficial. We got up at UK time, not needing to be up earlier, and listened to Thought for the Day on Radio Four while getting breakfast ready. We walked down to the bus stop at Ladera del Mar for the ten to eleven Line 3, and went straight to the Church Shop. Gill and Mike were on duty today. I could tell on arrival as the window display had changed yet again, with a fresh array of attractive colourful clothes. 

Gill is also the organist, and I was pleased to touch base with her to get her correct contact details, as those in the church phone seemed not to be correct. Mike was also able to email me her planned list of hymns for the next six weeks. As I'm preparing the weekly pew sheet until the end of my stay, it's good to have all the info in advance.

Clare wanted to swim at Playa Calahonda next to the Balcon de Europe, so we took our leave, and made our way to the beach. All along the Balcon today is a double row of tent sheltering stalls that promote all the best variety of food products from Malaga Province. Cheese, bread, wine, liqueurs, different kinds of sausage etc under the banner 'Sabor de Malaga'. This event runs from today until Sunday, concurrent with the 'Fiesta de la Cruz de Flor'. 

In the Plaza del Salvador stands a large cross in an enclosure with symbols of Christ's lordship over all creation, decorated with flowers. This evening there will be a ceremony of blessing conducted by the Parish Priest. In different barrios around the town other flowery crosses will be set up by local parish and community groups. There's even a Cruz de Flor set up next to the side door on the north side of the church, by a cancer fund raising charity. Some restaurants and public buildings have their own al well. It's an occasion I recall from being here in May previously, both in Nerja and Malaga.

Clare's swim was very brief as she found the water much colder than her previous dip, so we returned to the Plaza del Salvador and had a tapas lunch again at Biznaga. The food is good and it's a great place to sit and watch the world go by. Doing this meant we missed the last Line 3 bus to leave town before the afternoon siesta break, so we had three hours to kill. Shopping for gifts soon loses its appeal. We sat for a while in the shade of a canopy outside a leather goods shop and Clare dozed off. Eventually we went back to Biznaga and had a drink, then went to the bus stop, where I knew we'd find benches and a few spots of shade. I needed to buy some chicken, wine and San Miguel Cero beer, so went up to the nearest big supermarket and back while Clare waited in the shade.

The four forty five bus arrived early, and left on time. I wonder if this same bus does the Line 1 service when it's not shuttling to and from Ladera del Mar to Parada Monica? When we got back to the house, Clare had another swim, and I started working on the pew sheets for this week and next, since I'm going to be away in Wales from Wednesday to Saturday next week. Clare only wanted salad for supper so I cooked myself a sauce to eat with spaghetti, and after supper spent the rest of the evening completing the pew sheet files. A fiddly task, as there's so much variable detail contained within each week. A least I now have all the info I need on the chaplaincy computer desktop. And so to bed.

A day of food and art

Needless to say, we rose and breakfasted late, after getting to bed at two thirty in the morning on Ascension night. Owain went for his first swim of the day, while I said Morning Prayer, and tidied up after breakfast. Then, we walked along the Paseo Maritime into the port to get to the Old Town, and made our way to Mercado Atarazanas where Owain was keen to stock up on olives stuffed with garlic, pickled sweet garlic and early season cherries, nibbles he loves.

Laden with bags of our special purchases, we crossed the road to 'La Martina Gastrotienda', a place whose website I found while looking for a local supplier of a red wine called 'Vega del Geva' from Álora, a town at the head of the Guadalhorce Valley to the west of Malaga. We discussed going to the bodega is there, not far from the terminus of the C2 metro. Reviewers have given this Sierras de Malaga DOC product the status of a Spanish 'Superwine', presumably ticking all the boxes on a sommelier's checklist, so it's something we were both determined to find and try.

Step one, identify the wine label on the Gastrotienda shelf, and check the price (€14). Step two, take a look in an assortment of small delis across town to see if they stock it. Step three, compare prices. There were two shops at the top end of Calle Granada which had it in the window at about €10, and at Crespillo Innova deli in nearby Calle Cervantes €11 where eventually for convenience we bought a bottle. Apparently it's €9 in the Álora Mercadona.

Even so, La Martina Gastrotienda is an Aladdin's cave of cold meats, pates and local cheeses, and it offers each weekday a different gourmet sample and a beer for €5, so we stopped here and ate cold roast pork, thinly sliced, to sustain us before heading for the Museo Carmen Thyssen, to see both the permanent collection and temporary 'Mediterraneo' exhibitions, which Clare and I saw last month.

The permanent collection is two floors of mainly Spanish 17-19th century paintings in different styles, plus a small collection of sacred art from 14-18th century, and a temporary exhibition of the engravings of Gustav Doré. Just as Doré's Spanish engravings are documentary in character, so the paintings exhibited give an accurate and vivid account of Andalusian life and culture in that era. It took us a couple of hours to see everything, and we were grateful for a coffee in the café afterwards, before heading back to the apartment for Owain to take his second swim of the day, followed by a bowl of the cazuelo I'd prepared earlier. 

Hearing the sound of fiesta music somewhere in the barrio, we ventured out again at half past ten and found that the local casa cofradia del Descendimiento was open for a social event in the same way that the casa cofradia de los Estudiantes was partying last weekend. The crowd of revellers was not as big, but the same mix of ages, with a bar set up in the place where the trona Clare and I saw carried on Good Friday is stored.

We then walked down to the port, bought an ice cream, and went to Muello Uno. There was nothing happening there, as Artsenal was closed. Not surprisingly, as it's still quite cool at night which tends to drive people indoors earlier, and then most of the beach restaurants close.

The space on the quay occupied with retail stalls in wooden huts for six weeks from Easter was cleared the week before last, to make room for a succession of one off events. Tonight it hosts a quite mysterious installation, consisting of a long scaffolding framework holding a rainbow array of veils, forming a long pleasingly colourful corridor, either to walk through or look at. It's unclear.

A work in progress tonight, for sure, and it's associated with the media hashtag #ladamadeaciero - the Lady of Steel (not quite the Iron Lady), but quite why this is so, it's impossible to say. Maybe tomorrow we'll find out.