Don't sit down cause I've moved your chair (Málaga, Day 2)

Yesterday's clouds are gone and the temperature is on the rise again. We ditched yesterday's breakfast venue for Krumble, a café/patisserie not much further toward the old town. An excellent find. The coffee was a tad bitter for my taste but the croissants were excellent. I'd venture to say the best I've had outside France, dear reader.

Tempting.

From Krumble, we went in search of the Centre Pompidou. That's not completely accurate; we knew where the centre was because it has a perspex multi-coloured cube on ground level. It was the entrance we weren't sure about. There was definitely no door in the cube so I reasoned the entrance had to be underneath, on the same level as Pier One and the shops and restaurants.

The Pompidou cube.

We walked past a large white panel that proclaimed the Pompidou opening hours and that it is closed only 2 days of the year. No entrance there. Around the corner was the ramp to the next level and the cube. No entrance there. Back down again to the white panel. This time I read it more carefully. Closed only two days of the year ... and Tuesdays. Today was... yep, no need to go on.

Bluey is everywhere.

Plan B. Visit the Picasso Museum. I had checked on the website and there was plenty of availability. There were only two cruise ships in port so access shouldn't be a problem. Except everyone from the ships decided to visit the Picasso museum that morning. What ever happened to sleeping late and enjoying your holiday? The queue was around the corner and the sign said 'sold out'. We back-tracked a little, found a seat in the shade and checked the museum website - there was availability today. I booked for 1:00pm in the hope that the cruise crowd would be eating lunch or having a siesta.

Street art.

Plan C. Picasso Casa Natale. This is also a museum of sorts and hosts exhibitions of his work. It was less than a 10 minute walk from the museum so off we went, dodging tour groups all the while. Picasso's house, at least where he was born, is situated off a square or plaza. There was a number of groups milling around so we went directly to the door to read "the house is closed due to a change in exhibition". It reopens on October 22nd. A tad too long to wait.

A random church.

Curses foiled again, as Snidely Whiplash would say. So we sat and people watched for a while. There was obviously some treasure hunt game happening from one of the cruise ships, as groups of people entered the park area, one in each group wearing a plastic lei. Mmmm, such fun. We wandered back towards Pier One to have a look around the markets and the rich people's boats.

In the Square near Picasso Casa Natale.

Finally we made the Picasso Museum and went through both exhibitions. In terms of Picasso, I've seen better exhibitions of his work - the one at the Victorian Art Gallery in Melbourne a few years back comes to mind. These comprise works on loan from his daughter-in-law and his grandson. Additionally, there were some interesting works on display from some of Picasso's contemporaries.

Imagine what he could do with Gina Rinehart?

As I have mentioned previously, travel is supposed to broaden one's mind. It just makes me dislike people more. Who, in their right mind, would bring two toddlers to an art exhibition? In a double pram? I know it's a generational thing, but seriously. One pre-language child discovered the joy of echo chambers. He was enjoying himself. His older sister thought it fun to march around, slapping her feet as loudly as possible. One of the security people ordered her back to her mother's side and sent her father outside to continue his phone call away from the art works. They should be called the 'entitled' generation. Absolutely no consideration or concern for anyone but themselves.

Electro-sexual Sewing Machine by Dominguez.

Then it was back to the hotel to blog and rest before a 5pm guided tour of the Roman Theatre and Alcazaba. We were certainly getting our steps up today. I had chosen this time because I reasoned the cruise ships leave in the late afternoon so that crowd would all be ship bound. And because when I booked, there were only two other people registered.

Sad face to see a large crowd around our red umbrella meeting point. Happily the group was then divided into Spanish and English, although we still ended up with 22 people. One, a young girl from Thailand had bought her suitcase with her. Now the tour was of the theatre and fortress. The fort, as you might expect, was carved out of the hill side and reached from the lower level to the top of the hill. No lift. No smooth pathway. Fortunately for her, a nice young American man offered to carry the case for her after he saw her initial struggles. The couple with the pram sensibly ditched it at the start of the tour and carried the child.

It was a steep climb.

Like most of southern Spain, this area has a history of conquest, defeat, conquest and was shared by Romans, Visigoths, Christians and Muslims over the years. Similar to the Roman Theatre in Cartagena, the fort was only rediscovered recently. In the 1960s, the government was 'rehabilitating' a less than desirable suburb and discovered some wonderful columns and arches that had been 'appropriated' by the people to build their houses. Rehabilitation became an archaeological quest and parts of the fort, Alcazaba, were reclaimed and restored.

Arches and bricks.

And columns. Different eras.

Gardens and water for a calming influence.

That night we hit the roof top bar for drinks and food and shots of the sunset. Well, two out of three ain't bad. The cloudless sky did little to enhance the sunset, although the moon was the star (OK moon) of the show. The photos Jayne took with her mobile on the first night look like the best we'll get as far as a colourful sunset goes.

The roof top terrace.

Time for bed after a big day of walking, over 22,000 steps.

Sunset, as it was.

Oops, I almost forgot. The title, dear reader. The latest trend in Spanish hotels is to dispense with carpet and have marble or faux wooden floors. In our current abode, we have marble. The chair at the desk is large, heavy and awkward to move. If not picked up carefully, it makes quite a racket, so every time someone moves a chair, you hear it. Not so pleasant at 1:30am. Hence the Arctic Monkeys and Don't Sit Down Cause I've Moved Your Chair.

Until tomorrow.