Malaga Spain Oct 27 - on the way to Gibraltar

 We left Cordova in the morning and were on the way to Gibraltar.

We stopped at Malaga. The first image shows the remains of a Roman fortifications below which is a restored Roman amphitheater (one of our tour group is in the image).  

Malaga is one of the oldest cities in Spain, having been a Phoenician colony. The name of the city may come from the Phoenician word for salt, mlh, which is also a Hebrew (in Hebrew pronounced melach) and Arabic term for salt. After the Phoenician period it became a Carthaginian province, then a Roman province, etc.  It is one of the biggest cities in Spain and has a nice seaport as well.

 


The second image is from wikipedia. The image was taken from the 14th century Moorish (emirate of Granada) fort on the 400' hill overlooking the city. This hill is called the Gibralfaro (from a Phoenician phrase, jbol faro, meaning 'Rock of Light)'. I didn't climb the hill as it would have taken too long.

We had a picnic lunch at the linear park on the left of that image. We also spoke to a guy from Texas who had decided to reside in this city. The fortress was not taken by force during the Christian re-conquest but it was surrendered by the Moslems when they ran out of food in 1487.

The third image, at the perimeter of the linear park, shows Beth and me at a statute of Solomon Ibn Gabirol an 11th century poet and neo Platonist philosopher. His philosophical work, 'Source of Life', a.k.a., Fons Vitea, developed the implications of the premise that all sub-luminary things, including the souls of humans, are made of form* and matter. The original arabic version was lost and a latin translation was, for 6 centuries, thought to be the work of someone else. 

The other famous people born in Malaga are Pablo Picasso (20th century artist) and Antonio Banderas (20-21st century actor). Malaga was also the point of several historic battles, including a sea battle during the War of Spanish Succession in 1704 and in 1937 the Battle of Malaga won by the forces of Francisco Franco.

The last image shows, in the foreground, the little park we had lunch in and the background, part of the Gibralfaro hill.

 * 'form' in classical philosophy is not what we think of form now; in that philosophy 'form' is an animating force which makes matter take both shape and function