6 Unique Souvenir Stores in Malaga

My daughter started the magnet thing during her gap year, working as an au pair in New York. Every place we went, she insisted on a magnet, and it stuck (we even have a Málaga one on our own fridge now, four years into living here, which still feels a bit strange). It’s made me pay more attention to what actually counts as a good souvenir, and how much of what’s sold in this city is just plastic filler on a spinning rack.

I’ve bought something at five of the six shops below, a fan, a puzzle, a straw donkey head, a print, a pair of earrings. The sixth, I only found last night, so I can’t claim a purchase there yet, but it’s good enough that I wasn’t going to leave it out. These are where I’d send you for unique souvenirs in Málaga, instead of the stalls on the main strip.

All six of these sit in Málaga’s Old Town, so if you’re still deciding where to base yourself, it’s worth picking somewhere central.

La Familia Concept Store

Walk down toward Calle Larios past the Church of the Holy Martyrs Ciriaco and Paula and you’ll hit La Familia Concept Store right next door, one of those shops that always seems to have someone in it. Busyish is the word, more often than not.

Through the window: a blue and white tiled Andalusian floor as soon as you’re in, then shelves that mix fans and tote bags with kids’ toys, shoes, salt and pepper shakers, stationery. Nothing about it says one category, it’s more a general store with a good eye for what people actually pick up.

My own fan came from here, somewhere in the 8 to 12 euro range depending on which one caught my eye.

Mapas y Compañía

Hot air balloons hang from the ceiling at Mapas y Compañía, on Calle Compañía, 33, in Centro, and there are globes lit up from the inside among the shelves. Walking in felt like stepping into a whole new world, genuinely a little magical.

I came out with a 3D puzzle, around 40 euros.

The shelves go well past books. Travel guides, cartography, globes, geography-themed gifts, cups and birthday cards you won’t easily find elsewhere in Málaga. There’s a small stock of English-language titles too, for adults and kids, some of them bilingual editions, and a handful of French books mixed in among the Spanish.

One whole cabinet is given over to Tintin, and one of the shop windows is dressed with the characters. It’s the kind of window you find yourself stopping at anyway, puzzle or no puzzle.

Temporánea Concept Shop Málaga

Temporánea Concept Shop is in Local 1 at Palacio de Salinas, Calle Salinas 6, Distrito Centro, 29015 Málaga. What caught my eye on the shelves were the hand-painted postcards, the Málaga-themed t-shirts and a good stack of books.

I ended up buying a straw donkey head for around 30 euros, and it’s been sitting near my plants at home ever since. There’s more beyond that, scarves, bookmarks and posters among them, and they’ll do a personalised souvenir if you ask.

Everything in the shop comes from local artists and designers, the same kind of makers you’ll find at La Merced’s artisan market on a Sunday, each piece built around an iconic Málaga location. Worth a stop before you reach for the usual fridge magnets down the road.

The gift shop inside the Carmen Thyssen museum

The gift shop at Carmen Thyssen, one of the museums worth building a day around in Málaga, doesn’t ask for a ticket, you can walk straight in without paying to see the exhibits. Next door there’s a café with a terrace and an indoor section, decent coffee, a good place to land once you’ve finished browsing.

I picked up a small print of Boy with a Hen, the original by the Spanish painter Manuel Benedito Vives, somewhere between 12 and 20 euros. They stock prints of every painting the museum holds, so whatever caught your eye on the walls, there’s a version of it for sale by the till.

And if the ticket price is putting you off the collection itself, it’s free on Sundays from 4pm (12 euros otherwise, 8 euros reduced). Go for that, stay for the coffee. If you’d rather have someone else string the old town’s museums together into one morning, a guided old town tour is the easy way to do it.

Roto

Javier Ruiz used to be a lawyer. He left the profession behind to open Roto, on Calle Pastora 1 in Centro, and I know him now from visiting the shop so many times over the years.

You can spot it before you’re even at the door: old fans and records hang outside and fill the window. Inside there’s antique figurines, radios, gramophones, vinyl records, antique tobacco tins and vintage photographs.

Of the six shops in this piece, Roto is the one I’d call my favourite, and it isn’t close. That’s mostly down to one thing, the abstract earrings. There’s a whole selection of them hung on an open umbrella somewhere in that clutter, which is such a strange and lovely way to display them that I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.

I bought a pair shaped like slabs of chocolate there.

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One of them has a bite taken out of it, like the chocolate itself had already been started.

Alfajar Cerámica Artesanal

I found this place completely by chance last night, after dark. It’s at Calle Císter 1, inside the Palacio de Zea-Salvatierra. The building itself is 17th-century baroque, near the Cathedral.

The shop’s family-run and has been for decades, selling handcrafted vases and tiles, along with jewellery and art from other local designers. I haven’t bought anything yet. I want to go back.

Find all six here

All six shops sit in Málaga’s centro, the old town. Mapas y Compañía and the Carmen Thyssen shop happen to share a street, Calle Compañía. If you’re staying centrally, somewhere like Molina Lario or Palacio Solecio, you can walk to every one of them. If you’re driving in, check where you can actually park in the centre before you set off.

Roto’s the outlier, a real walk south of the other five, so don’t try to squeeze it into the same loop without budgeting extra time.

La Familia closes for lunch between 2pm and 3.30pm. The Carmen Thyssen museum itself is free to enter on Sundays from 4pm. A nice one to build a slow afternoon around, especially if you’re already chasing Málaga’s more unusual corners.