Monday 7 February - Málaga and Alhaurin de la Torre

Where's Bertie? He's in a large (but largely empty) car park alongside a park, in the town of Alhaurin de la Torre (exact location: 36.6669, -4.5598)
Weather: Wall-to-wall sunshine and warm.

I did something highly unusual this morning: I got the bike out and went for a ride! Whilst Mick was running his long run along the seafront, I took a very similar route. The cycle path was excellent (laid out as a mini-road, initially on one side of a dual carriageway, then along the promenade) until suddenly it veered off into the city. I followed it, having a recollection from the map that it took an inland dink at one point. After a while I thought the detour had been going on too long, and sure enough a look at the map confirmed that a u-turn was needed. I wasn't prepared to cycle along the carriageway of the multi-lane road, so I then did a lot of pushing along pavements to get to where I wanted to go.

My turn-around point was at the port

The castle wasn't overly visible from below

Perhaps I should have locked the bike up somewhere and proceeded on foot for a look around, but I wanted to be back at about the same time as Mick which meant I had no time for such wanderings. My return saw me take some back roads and brave little sections of the main road, getting back to Bertie about five minutes before Mick (quite how neither of us saw each other when we must have been on the same road at the same time is a bit of a mystery).

My opinion based on the outing: I saw nothing tacky or offensive about Málaga at all.

Back at Bertie, a chat was had with a British couple in a motorhome, who stopped to ask directions to the service point. During an interesting chat it transpired that they've been in Spain for 2 weeks and had no idea that masks were mandatory outdoors. "Oh!" she exclaimed "So that's why so many people are wearing them!".

Once they'd gone on their way, I suggested to Mick that, as the signs prohibiting overnight parking were unlikely to go up immediately, we should stay another night. That idea was scuppered not ten minutes later when we learnt that the said signs had been erected - and not just temporary signs, but cemented-into-the-ground proper road signs.

The place had emptied remarkably even before we saw the signs had gone up

See that big bus of a motorhome? You can't see in this snap, but in the back of that car garage there is a full-sized domestic washing machine. Just after I took this snap, he set up a bar in the doorway and as we left there were six people having a midday drinks party.

No tour in Bertie is complete without at least one trip to a Decathlon store, so that's where we headed from the Aire. We left some considerable time later having spent the best part of €200, but as always, feeling like we'd got good value for our money (well, assuming that the duplicate charge on my credit card's pending list disappears; presumably relating to the first attempt at the transaction, which was declined when we dithered too long trying to work out how to make it charge us in Euro, not in Pounds).

A late lunch was had in Decathlon's car park, a quick shop in an Aldi across the road, then onwards we came to Alhaurin de la Torre. I chose this place for two reasons: 1) I'm running tomorrow, but Mick isn't, which means I could chose a hilly place (Mick's marathon is flat, so there's no value in him training on hills); and 2) with possibly 200 motorhomes being dispersed from Málaga today, it seemed likely that everywhere nearby on the coast would be busy whereas past experience suggests that just a few km inland we would be alone (that held true until I started typing this sentence, when a Dutch van has pulled in next to us; why immediately alongside when there are so many spaces to chose from, I know not, but I'm amused, rather than annoyed, by their positioning).

Random street in Alhaurin 

A quick look around this afternoon showed us a pleasant town with lots of eateries. Hopefully we'll find one that will suit us for lunch tomorrow, although first we'll have to go away and come back, as the route I've identified for my morning exercise is a few kilometres away.

Not fountain of the day. That was in the middle of a roundabout, so not an ideal location to take a photo. 

^{(Referring back to the comments I made yesterday about the Aire in Málaga, I questioned how an Aire 'designed for 100 motorhomes' could now be said to hold more than 300, yet it not be cramped. I did a bit more reading of news articles and it turns out that the intention was for motorhomes to park in an L-shape around two edges of the car park, leaving the rest free for users of the sports facilities. The council also only intended for people to stay for 2 or 3 days. This is, in my view, a situation where some signage would have gone a long way, because there was absolutely nothing displayed on signs, or on the ground, that suggested there was any particular area for motorhomes, nor stating a time limit. Our experience is that even with such signage, people will park in non-motorhome spaces and will outstay the limit, but at least then there are grounds for enforcement, rather than seemingly working on the basis that 'people aren't following our uncommunicated intentions, so we'll ban them all'. Enforcement, rather than a ban, would also, of course, have brought funds into the council (although once word gets around that enforcement is in place, the number of abusers will dwindle significantly). Such a shame that the facility has been lost, but at least we were able to use it on the final night that it was legal.}

^{As a second, unrelated, aside: before I took the bike out, I put a bit of air in the tyres. Removing the dust cap off the rear valve, I fumbled and dropped it. The surface of the car park was light grey, the dust cap black, but could I find the thing? I'd pumped up the tyre with the rear wheel in its folded position (should have taken a photo; it's a Brompton folding bike), so I unfolded it and refolded it, in case the cap had got caught under the inverted mud guard. After a bit more head-scratching and searching I eventually located it wedged in the most awkward position between the brackets of the rear rack. Bet I couldn't make it land there again if I tried!)}