Málaga is a vast white sprawling city at the mouth of the Guadalmedina and is the next most mountainous province in Andalucia after Granada. Founded by the Phoenecians Màlaga then became an important Roman colony and under the Moors the main port for the Kingom of Granada. After the Moors were expelled agriculture nose-dived and there was famine in the 17th Century, but in the 19th Century porosperity arrived with textile factories, sugar mills, shipyards and steel mills.

Màlaga dessert wine was very popular in Victorian England until the phylloxera bug devistated the local vineyards . Wine is made today, sweet and full bodied, but its popularity fluctuates and the grapes are also dried and sold as currants. In the 1920´s after the “death” of the vineyards, Màlaga had its first surge of tourism as it became popular as a winter resort for rich Madrileños (people from Madrid), due to the pleasant climate. In the civil war the city was staunchly Republican.

In six years of struggle hundreds of Nationalist sympathisers were killed, churches bombed, convents burned, Italian aeroplanes bombed the city destroying much of its ancient central core.before falling to Nationalists in 1937. In the 1960´s Franco promoted tourism on the Costa del Sol and Màlaga which has since flourished. The centre of this city with its backdrop of the sparkling blue Mediterranean, has wide leafy boulevards, charming streets and buildings if slightly dillapidated, some impressive monuments and of course museums including that of Picasso, famous son of Màlaga.

The Alcazaba is the Muslim fortress at the lower western end of the hill that dominates Màlaga city centre. It is magnificent especially when the Jacaranda trees that stand at its base are in full bloom. At its entrance stands a Roman theatre, accidentally unearthed when the Casa de Cultura was being built, this has recently been demolished to make way for the restoration of the ancient building. The theatre is now used as an auditorium for various events. Above the Alcazaba towers stands the Castillo de Gibralfaro built in the 8th Century and rebuilt in the 14th & 15th Centuries. Màlaga`s cathedral or La Manquita on Calle Molino Lario is built on the site of a mosque, building took two centuries. The east tower was never completed as the money was given against the British in the American War of Independence. Recently the Costa de Sol’s American Society handed over money for repairs with belated thanks.

Gerald Brenan is buried at the English Cemetery founded in 1829 just beyond the Plaza de Toros. Before 1829 non catholic bodies were buried at night upright in the sand at the foot of the beach.