Beside the Seaside

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In Which I Am Transported Back to 1988

March 28, 2008 by Mike

Nerja

Route: Torremolinos - Málaga - Torre del Mar - Nerja

I've previously got lost trying to find Málaga airport: I suspect most people in western Europe have, too, at one time or another. Now, I can add getting lost in the city itself. The Moorish Gibralfaro castle dominating the seafront shouldn't be this hard to find. Neither should a huge Picasso Museum, when the city is question is a future European City of Culture, not to mention the artist's birthplace.

Nevertheless, it takes me half an hour of increasingly sweaty crosstown trafficking to reach the Museo Picasso Málaga.

Decent exhibits -- nothing much, you understand, just a whole sequence of extraordinary works of art.. a singular genius traced from childhood through struggle and superstardom to death.. enough to make you drool with delight, cravenly grateful that such a man existed in our time, stretching himself and carrying us in his wake.. yes, I like Picasso. But all this is wholly compromised by a godawful museum. No signs or directions in *any* language, beautifully-dressed staff shouting their personal lives at each other while the paying guests try to enjoy the galleries in peace and quiet. A space devoid of understanding of what people want. All style, no substance. The quantum opposite of Picasso's work. Pretentious in ways Picasso's art never is. A collision of cultures -- and art loses. Sad.

Onwards: escaping Malaga by hugging the coast, I make Nerja by late afternoon. Twenty years after I was last here: a post-Finals group of Warwick students blowing the last of the grant (remember student grants?) on a short week staying in someone's parent's villa.

It was quite a week: in the end, it was less Peter's Friends and more the friends of Dorothy that made it so special. There were, what? eight of us here in 1988? I note that two of them are now Facebook friends. We're still down wiv da kidz, eh?

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I can't remember much of what went on outside the villa back then. But I bet our haircuts were terrible. Tonight I find the little square where all the late night bars jostle for custom. The staff outnumber the punters at 11 o'clock. I come back 90 minutes later and realise I'm still too early. Like Torremolinos, it's empty and, out of season, a little sad. I get to bed early.. by which I mean it's lights out before three. Almost.

--

When I opened up my laptop this evening I found a squashed bug. Clearly, I've been working outdoors too often. Heh heh.. in the *sunshine*, too!

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