June 2014

Are you going to Malaga? Do you like windows? Yes? Well, the Echegaray Suites may be the place for you! It offers a whopping 28 panes of glass in the living room alone! Floor-to-ceiling ones arrayed in a charming bay arrangement on the corner of a historic, pleasingly Spanish street corner! Plus more shutters than you’d find in a particularly sleepy Andalucian village at siesta time. AND the windows have delightful decorative wrought iron railings thoughtfully positioned over the lower bits of window so that you, your cat** or an inadvertently dropped bagel don’t cascade onto the streets below.

And then there are the views! Looking through these 28 panes allows views of quaint marbled streets, bustling restaurants, Malaguenos doing Malagueno things below. And, depending on shutter situations on the other side of the streets, you also sometimes get views into the little old Spanish lady opposite’s apartment, complete with ancient chandeliers and dark, aged, oil paintings of religious scenes. Sounds perfect? Well, it is… unless you are a person even partially partial to sleep.

The variety of noise that will prevent you getting even four consecutive minutes of sleep during the night really is truly amazing. The Spanish may be the most impressively creative noisemakers in the galaxy. And such energy! They think nothing of a rousing chorus of an Enrique Iglesias classic to celebrate it turning quarter past five or an impromptu 6 am drum recital. There’s the general restaurant chatter from the three restaurants opposite, the one below and the two on the side street. There’s the booming gong that echoes through the streets, letting waiters know that it’s time to thunk a plate of overpriced tapas down in front of a baying table of drunken stag lads. There are the whoops and bellows of “Ole” when they do. There are the sporadic whistling competitions, the saxophone versions of The Pink Panther Theme, the flamenco guitar duels, the surprisingly frequent and belligerent piccolo solos. The squeals, the shouts, the singing. My, how the Spanish like to sing! And such a varied repertoire! There’s the nightclub below, which is obviously the most hilarious place to stagger out of in Western Europe. My, how they cackle! And apparently it is necessary to empty all glass recycling bins in the historic centre every 37 minutes all night with a thunderous crash.

And those lovely marbled streets? The Malaguenos love them so much that they despatch armies of tiny marble mopping trucks to clean and polish them on the hour every hour, their tiny wheels squeaking like swarms of terrified piglets throughout the night until 7 am… when the church bells start and the swifts start shrieking their ear-piercing delight at the beginning of a new day.

BUT, despite having detailed these diverse diversions from sleep, it’s such a supremely Spanish cacophony that I was actually happy to stay here for the first night. By the fourth, I was ready to murder myself.

Who would this apartment suit?

*This would be a good apartment for my dad who has excellent eyesight, so would enjoy peering into the darkness of the wee lady opposite’s apartment, trying to identify religious scenes in her paintings. And his abysmal hearing would edit out the worst of the piccolo performances.

*It would also suit someone only wanting to stay on a Sunday night, when restaurants are either closed early or, joy, don’t open at all.

*It would also suit someone with the ability to harness a 747’s worth of white noise and batten it closely to their ears.

The Summary:

Pros:

*Awesome, unbeatable location in the historic centre.

*A truly stunning apartment with soaring high ceilings and gorgeous light streaming in.

*Photos of shoes, plus other perks such as washing machine, TV, microwave, kettle, toaster.

*Pets can come too! (**and are unlikely to cascade out of the windows…)

*This place is so vast that I got different phone network options at one end of the apartment and the other.

*Walking home up atmospheric Calle Echegaray is a splendid experience.

*The ancient original door adds to the awesomeness.

*The soundproofing WITHIN is great… so, um, you won’t be bothered by someone blasting white noise in a desperate attempt to snatch fragments of sleep in the next room.

*Great aerial views of the tops of people’s heads and bird life.

*Excellent opportunities to drop inexplicable things onto plates of people eating below, such as plastic octopii and paper planes featuring poetry about goats.

Cons:

*A tad noisy.