While Málaga battles overtourism down the coast, this ‘forgotten’ working port city revels in its outsider status
P
erched high on the battlements of Almería’s 10th-century Alcazaba, looking over the mosaic of flat roofs tumbling down to the sea, I’m reminded of author Gerald Brenan’s travel classic South from Granada, and his impression upon arriving in Almería in 1920: “Certainly, it seemed that the sea was doubly Mediterranean here, and the city … contained within it echoes of distant civilisations.”
A British adventurer, Hispanist and fringe member of the Bloomsbury group, Brenan had walked to Almería from where he was living near Granada, apparently to buy extra furniture in preparation for a visit from Virginia Woolf and friends. A century later, my journey here in a 30-year-old van from London is somewhat less notable, but as I marvel at the almost surreal incandescence of the Med, and the maze of ancient streets below me, I too am aware of a sensation of time travel.
Brenan would have been a novelty visitor back then. And even today, unlike Málaga, just a couple of hours down the coast, Almería is little visited by international tourists, although the similarities between the two cities are striking. Both are ancient ports of beguiling tree-lined streets, a sparkling beach, a Moorish fort, and a 16th-century cathedral, yet Almería has so far remained under the radar, while Málaga is battling the effects of overtourism. Almería is reminiscent of the old Málaga, before its 1990s makeover, when its reputation as a sketchy port city was transformed by major investment and the overhaul of its waterfront into a soulless shopping and eating development.
