Planning on going to Malaga for 2 days from Seville before our trip to Barcelona - should we bother?

My sister and her husband, 2 small children vacation there every December and love it. She said that the Costa del Sol is very beautiful. I think it is worth a visit, maybe you could even get over to see the Rock of Gibralter further down as a day trip?

IMHO tacky - not gross. Why there in particular? You could do marbella/puerto banus - or further along the coast for something a little more pleasant.

People told us not to go to Malaga either and we were pleasantly suprised. There is now a Picasso Museum and the area around the Cathedral is a great pedestrian area to just walk around, shop and have tapas. The area aroung the harbor is landscaped beautifully and I think, Malaga is a great base for exploring the coast from Gibraltor at one end to nerja at the other.

Agree with above poster...the Museo Picasso is great, as is the palace, the alcazar, Picasso's house, and the cathedral. As most cities, some parts are "gross", but IMO the city center is really underated...the Parador is worth a stop too for a glass of wine the view.

Malaga isn't like the other places along that stretch of coast - it's not a resort, its the regional centre of gov. & was a big important place while the rest were still fishing villages.NOT tacky.

Why have you chosen Malaga for two days if, as it appears, you don't know very much about it? Are you planning to visit other places in Andalusia such as Cordoba, Granada, Ronda etc.?

Perhaps the poster doesn't "know much" about the other places, either, OR simply doesn't agree with you that they are necessarily better.

I'm not suggesting that those places are necessarily "better", although I think that I'd visit them before Malaga. I'm just curious to know why someone has planned to spend two days in Malaga and then asks if it is gross and should they bother.

Málaga is a nice, working class city of Spain. It has a few nice sites, good food and very cheap shopping (at least 20% cheaper for the same stuff vis-a-vis Marbella). My wife and I liked it bc it is one of the least touristic cities on the costa del sol. I guess it really depends on what you're looking for. If you want to shop in Spain, do go there.

We stayed just outside Malaga in April. The town itself is nice, but make sure you don't get stuck at a resort several km away like we did. All in all I thought the south of Spain was too much like Florida, except overrun with elderly Brits instead of Americans.

The reason, laverendrye, why we are considering Malaga for 2 days is that we will be spending 3 in Seville, 1 in Ronda, then we wanted to go to a coastal area for 2 days before we fly up to Barcelona for the remainder of our trip. Malaga, being a city center- has great flights to Barcelona. However we are getting conflicting opinions on Malaga and we are trying to decide if we should spend overnight time there, or just the day visiting the museum and tool around before we catch our flight, etc. We're simply looking for some friendly advice - never been to Spain - I thought the reason for the forum was for people to help and advise! Thanks to everyone else for their thoughts!