MacsTravel Blog

Our four week winter trip to Spain was a relatively late decision. We have planned a big trip to Italy in May 2025 with friends we’ve known since university days, but a series of stressful events led us to book four weeks on the Costa del Sol in Spain. This trip was for relaxing, we vowed. We were just going to hang out, walk along the Mediterranean, drink wine and eat good food. Relax.

As a practicing wizard in the dark arts of credit card points and “bonus weeks” Robin got us business class tickets to Malaga (via Frankfurt) and four weeks in Mijas Costa, which lies between Malaga and Marbella, for less than a week at an all inclusive in the Caribbean. Our return home would start with a ghastly 5:30 am flight followed by a 5 hour layover in Zurich before returning home in steerage, but that was in the future!

Never having taken a business class flight I really wasn’t sure what I was in for. It started with access to the Air Canada Signature Lounge at Pearson and a shockingly good meal.

Then we boarded the plane in Zone 1. Zone 1! I don’t think I’ve ever boarded in a group under Zone 5.

And the space! Elbow room, leg room, comfy quilts and pillows. I had tweaked my back (an injury that ironically resulted from stress and over zealous yoga sessions to destress) a few days before the flight and was walking like C3PO so it was a blessed relief to be able to stretch out.

We transferred in the incredibly large and busy Frankfurt airport (which, as always, involved innumerable bus trips and navigating moving sidewalks and crucial instructions delivered only in German) before finally landing in Malaga around 4pm Spanish time.

We had decided to spend a couple of nights in Malaga before picking up our rental car and heading to Mijas Costa. We stayed in the apartment we had rented the previous year, which was conveniently located in the centre of the old city and notably inconvenient for the lack of coffee brewing equipment of any sort, a first, I believe, for any tourist rental in Europe.

We followed our steadfast rule upon arrival: to always get out for a walk and a bite to eat rather than collapsing face first on the nearest horizontal surface, which was what we wanted to do. After subjecting my back to some pounding on the old cobblestone streets we wandered into Taberna Casa Lola, an old school tapas establishment with some nouveau embellishments.

The food was great and we ordered way too much as we (ok, I) always do. We made our way back to the apartment to crash and get ready for our 10am reserved slot at the Picasso museum.

Picasso was born in Malaga, and this small museum in the Buenavista Palace provides a great overview of his life and the incredible range of mediums in which he worked (paint, sculpture, print making, engraving, metal work…). The audio guide is terrific. As the museum is comprised mostly of works donated by the family it doesn’t do a deep dive into some of the more problematic aspects of Picasso’s life, but it remains a fascinating place to visit.

It also has a serene little courtyard where you can enjoy a cup of coffee.

The museum frames a lovely courtyard in the Moorish style where group of students where engaged in a performance art piece that involved climbing onto a web of ropes to which clothes had been fixed, and then trying to climb into said clothes. It looked to be exhausting work.

The rest of our time in Malaga involved roaming around the old city and the waterfront, stopping for lunch and late evening drinks at two of our favourite spots from our time here last year. It really is an underrated city and well worth a few days.

The next morning we took an Uber back out to the airport to pick up our rental car. After wandering around for 3o minutes trying to find the rental car booths we discovered them cleverly hidden in the depths of the underground parking lot. We picked up our little Opel manual, and after some minor gear grounding we soon found ourselves zipping down the coast to Las Mimosas Beach Club in Minas Costa.

We parked our car upon arrival and met the manager Salko (who appeared to be an extra from the series Vikings) and were checked in. Salko gave us a fob to operate the parking gate and called ahead to Mira, a colleague who would show us our apartment. “You can park right outside the apartment”, he said. “It’s less than a minute from here.”

We jumped in the car, only to discover that we could not get it to go in reverse.

An aside: I’ve driven manual transmissions for years. So has Robin. I could not get the car into reverse, and every time I tried it only edged closer to the imposing stone wall in front of us. This resulted in muttered and not so muttered swearing on my part and peals of “supportive laughter” from Robin. After several minutes of this Robin took a turn and, much to my relief, utterly failed to engage the reverse gear. Rather than do any one of the numerous sensible options available (check the owner’s manual, consult YouTube, ask the Viking) I had Robin put the car in neutral and I pushed it out, wonky back and all.

We raced through the gate and pulled up to another stone wall to find a relieved Mira who no doubt was wondering what could have befallen us in the 200 meters between the office and the apartment.

Ten minutes later we were inside, and all was forgotten.

Postscript: the Opel has a tiny (one might say virtually invisible) ring on the column of the gear shift that you have to lift to engage the reverse gear. Thanks YouTube.