Málaga - Madrid Study Tour | College Study Abroad

FALL BLOCK II - MÀLAGA

Málaga is the second most populous city of Andalusia and the southernmost large city in the European Union; it lies on the Costa del Sol (Coast of the Sun) of the Mediterranean Sea. The Study Tour teaches students a lesson of how a city can reinvent itself. Málaga’s history spans about 2,800 years, making it one of the oldest cities in the world. The city founders, the Phoenicians, named the port malaka, meaning ‘to salt’: The city held out against the invading Christian armies until 1487 and displayed equal tenacity against Franco’s fascists during the Spanish Civil War in 1936-1939. Recently the city leadership has managed to stave off the mass development that typifies the adjacent Costa del Sol.

The internationally acclaimed painter and sculptor Pablo Picasso and the actor Antonio Banderas were born in Malaga. Today the city has transformed itself with half a dozen new art galleries and top-notch museums, a radically re-engineered port area and a nascent hipster art district called Soho. Not that Málaga was ever lacking in identity: the food culture encompasses both Michelin stars and cheap, high-quality fish shacks on the beaches. One of Malaga´s most intriguing and mysterious attractions is the cultural notion of duende, the elusive spirit that douses much of Spanish art, especially flamenco.

FREE TIME SUGGESTIONS

Check out the Vehicles and Fashion Museum that has a collection of around 90 classic cars, plus displays of haute couture fashion & hats. located in the emblematic building of La Tabacalera, in Sor Teresa Prat Avenue 15.