Travel Tuesday - Man's 50th Birthday Trip - Malaga, Spain

 Malaga Spain, is a city on the souther coast with the population of almost 600 000 people. While famous for the beaches, Malaga was the birth place of Picasso and we spent our time there learning about him.

Our guide, was the complete opposite of our Moroccan guide. He was kind, passionate, and so knowledgable. He was an older gentleman who considered himself a student of life, and was passionate about Picasso. He took people on tours to share his love of the artist. I can truly say I have an understand of the artist and a greater appreciation for his works now. 

We started with a short bus ride from the port to the city, where our group of 16 took a walk to the Picasso Museum. 

Here are a couple of shots from the walk to the musuem. 

The Picasso Museum holds the 100 or so works that were in Picasso's studio at the time of his death in France. Picasso's father had been a painter and taught art. He disowned his son for leaving traditional painting behind. Here are some fact I learned. Picasso created over 50 000 pieces of art in his life time, over 3500 of these were ceramic pieces. He always needed a muse, generally a young woman and was married twice and had at least 7 partners. He fathered 4 children. Our guide said to understand his work you needed to know where in his life it was created, and who the love of his life was. He selected the dove as the symbol of peace after WWII when asked to create a symbol. He only did about 10 commissions in his lifetime. He painted for himself. 

As art is very subjective, here are just a few of the pieces that captured my interest. You can see a variety of his styles. 

When he was starting out and had no money, he would paint on scrap wood

Our wonderful guide sharing his love of the art

After the museum we took the short walk to the house Picasso was born and raised in.

This is where he was born

Me and Picasso

The tour ended with some tapas.

The gluten free version

As we could catch the shuttle back to the port at any time, we decided to check out Santa Iglesia Catedral. 

Malaga was a highlight of our trip and we really enjoyed our time there. Next week we sail to Marseille, France, for a wander around the city.