43 degrees in Malaga

I've never understood why Malaga city isn't better known to Northern Europeans. Millions of us fly into its massive airport every year, but we all seem to head a few miles west to the province's overdeveloped resorts, or maybe drive off in hire cars to somewhere perceived as more interesting, like ummm... the Alpujarra. Yet Malaga has masses of charm. Where Seville is authentically gritty and Granada is all about the romance of history, Malaga is a big, blowsy strumpet of a place packed with elegant 19th and early 20th century buildings, fantastic bars, good shopping and excellent city beaches. Young Malagueños and Malagueñas are a good-looking body-conscious lot, given to posing around the pedestrianised streets of an evening and giving the place a distinctly party feel. As the birthplace of the 20th century's most significant artist, Malaga has a great museum dedicated to Picasso's works (the best stuff may be in Paris, Madrid and New York, but he was so prolific that there always seems to be enough to fill another Picasso Museum when someone feels like opening one. Why should his home town miss out?) There's also the great man's birthplace, and the brand new Carmen Thyssen Museum - I've not had a chance to visit yet, but I believe it has an impressive collection of mostly modern Spanish art including Miró and Tapíes as well as, yes, Picasso again.

Anyway, we called in to the city yesterday for a great lunch of gazpacho and pescaito frito - mixed fried fish in the lightest imaginable batter. It's more like Japanese tempura than cod from the chippy, which is just as well as the temperature in the city centre was 43 degrees - 109 if, like me, you prefer to think of high temperatures in Fahrenheit.

They're adept at decorating the streets in Malaga, and their ingenuity stretches to lovely cooling canopies over the main drag, Larios, and some of the neighbouring calles and plazas. Even in the shade, though, it was v. hot.

If you're planning to visit our place in Juviles, you might like to know that with the fast-improving coastal motorway you can get from Malaga airport to our door in about 2 hours and 15 minutes. (OK, that's my best time so far, but it is feasible.) I would, however, recommend a night out in Malaga on the way to or from our place. The sophisticated urbanity of this great city is quite a contrast to the bucolic charms or our tiny village, and a quick fix of glamour is well worth a slight detour.