3 fun facts about Málaga

When traveling, you can boost your general knowledge in many ways,through a local dish, language exchange, or a cultural visit. In short, there’s so many options. Unsurprisingly, the more curious you are, the more interesting things can get. To prove it, we’re sharing three intriguing facts about Málaga. Every year, on Good Friday, Málaga releases one of its prisoners. Yes, you heard me right. This unusual tradition began back in 1759, during a time when the plague was sweeping through Spain. So the story goes, a group of prisoners, shocked by the cancellation of the Easter processions, broke out of jail just long enough to parade through the streets, carrying an image of Jesus and praying for an end to the plague. Afterwards, they calmly walked themselves back to their cells. The king at the time, Carlos III, was so impressed by this act of faith and discipline that he granted the brotherhood of Jesús El Rico the right to release one inmate each year. A royal decision that’s still honored to this day. Another tradition in Málaga you might have noticed involves coffee,specifically, how it’s ordered. There are nine ways to ask for a coffee here, depending on how much milk you want. For example, a “largo”, meaning “long” , is 90% coffee with just a splash of milk. On the flip side, a “nube”, which means “cloud” , is 90% milk with just a trace of coffee, and a “sombra”, or “shadow”, lands somewhere in between, with 20% coffee and 80% milk. This clever system was created in 1954 by Don José Prado Crespo, aiming to satisfy every customer’s coffee preference while minimizing waste. And now that you’ve mastered Málaga’s coffee lingo, we’ll leave you with a final fun fact: the city’s metro clocks work a little differently. Like the old British railway clocks, the second hand only ticks up to fifty-eight-and-a-half seconds, then pauses briefly before jumping to the next minute. Why? It was designed that way to make sure trains depart right on time, though in Spain, that extra second might just be used for one last coffee.