Torremolinos and Malaga, Spain

Saturday

After a fairly chilly start to autumn in London, we were keen to get one last burst of summer before embarking on a long, dark, cold winter. So we set off to the Costa del Sol on the southern coast of Spain for eight days. We flew into Malaga on Saturday morning (25 September) and took the short train ride down the coast to Torremolinos, a beach resort town. We had read before arriving in Torremolinos that it was renowned for being a very “touristy” town (bordering on tacky) and usually full of English visitors. This proved to be the case.

Don’t get us wrong, Torremolinos is a nice enough place. It’s just not particularly “Spanish”. We went there with the intention of chilling out for a few days and getting some sun, which we did, so it served its purpose. We arrived in the town centre, with was buzzing with tourists. Apparently we were in the middle of a week-long local festival, so there was a lot of live music, flamenco dancing and, of course, drinking going on in the town centre.

Our hotel was very central, which was brilliant, and it was very nice too. It had two massive swimming pools! As it was not peak season, we managed to get a fantastic deal on the hotel that included “half-board”. So we had all you can eat buffet breakfast and dinner every day we were there. What we perhaps should have realised was that when you get sunny weather, a cheap hotel, all you can eat buffet and bargain prices, you also get swarms of elderly folk. There were literally thousands of them – all over our hotel and, come to think of it, all over Torremolinos. It was like being in that 1980s movie “Cocoon” – old people in a swimming pool.

Unfortunately Saturday afternoon was cloudy and drizzly, so we explored the town centre and found our way to an Irish pub (see, not very “Spanish”) for a couple of drinks. Dinner in the hotel was really nice – for a buffet, the quality was surprisingly good. We were very full after dinner so we went down to the beach for a walk. It was so nice to be by the sea again - we think the last time was in Monaco in March!

Sunday

The front half of our trip was all about relaxing, so there were no signs of early starts. The only reason to set the alarm was that breakfast finished at 10am. Sunday began rather grey as well, so we decided to take the opportunity to visit Malaga. Malaga is the second largest city in the Andalucia region in the south of Spain. It is on the coast and has a population of 560,000. One of its big draw cards is that it was the birthplace of artist Pablo Picasso, and it is now home to the Picasso Museum. The train from Torremolinos to Malaga took around 20 minutes and, on arrival, we wandered in to the centre of Malaga.

Malaga is a bit similar to Torremolinos, in that it is rather touristy and lacks a real Spanish feel to it. The town centre is very pretty, but just outside of that, especially around the train station, it is a rather unattractive concrete jungle. We headed straight for the Picasso Museum and we had to queue for a short while, but it was definitely worth it. The museum has a collection of over 150 of Pablo’s finest on display. The building itself is very new and the large open spaces with plenty of natural light present the collection magnificently.

Picasso (1881-1973) was somewhat unique as a famous artist, in that his works received acclaim during his lifetime, which meant that he was very successful and became very wealthy as a result of his paintings. It was amazing seeing the stark contrast between his early works and his later more famous works. Early on his paintings were very life-like, whereas later in his career his paintings were very abstract, creative and often bizarre. In Picasso’s own words, he claimed he spent an entire lifetime learning to paint like a child. We both loved the visit.

By the time we emerged from the museum, the sky had cleared and it was a very hot, sunny afternoon. We grabbed some lunch at a cafe outside the front of the enormous Malaga Cathedral and then we checked out the shops and the rest of the town centre. We bought a really cool Gaudi bull ornament in a souvenir shop. Then we sat in a lovely square in the sunshine and ate some ice-cream before bidding farewell to Malaga and boosting it back to the Torremolinos retirement village.

Monday

It was another slow start on Monday. We enjoyed another fantastic buffet breakfast - bacon, eggs, hash browns, baked beans...pancakes with nutella...fresh fruit and yogurt...awesome. After breakfast we rolled down the hill to the beach. It was a little cloudy to start with, but it soon cleared and was a hot sunny day. The beach was almost empty early on but gradually got more busy. The water was too cold for a dip, but it was just nice lying on the sand reading and relaxing. Torremolinos has a very nice beach - huge and very clean.

We had a late lunch in one of the town squares at a little tapas bar that had a big stage out the front where there was some flamenco dancing going on. Free entertainment! In the afternoon we had a look around town and then bought some sangria and local beer and retired to our hotel balcony. It was a lovely calm, warm evening.

Tuesday

Tuesday was the hottest day we had so far on the trip. We spent the late morning/early afternoon lying by the hotel pool. The pool itself was pretty chilly at first but fine once we were in and it was a nice relief from the scorching sun - we managed to acquire a little sunburn!

Our lunchtime tapas tradition continued and then we had a massive walk along the beach. We stumbled across a professional sandcastle-builder (see photo below) who had constructed a magnificent sandcastle of two volcanoes with little huts on the sides of the mountains and a tunnel system within the sandcastle that allowed him to pour water in the top of the volcanoes and it trickled out the bottom into a little pool. Very cool.

After our final buffet dinner we went down to "Tina's Bar" and watched Arsenal beat Olympiacos in a Champions League match. That brought a close to four very relaxing (read lazy) days on the Costa del Sol. The next four days were to be (slightly) more adventurous.






Megs by
huge Europa
statue,
Torre-
molinos









Tim in
centre of
Torre-
molinos











Not so
lovely
Malaga












Tim in
Malaga











Malaga
town
centre












Malaga
Cathedral
















Megan
celebrating
the sunshine!











A square in
Malaga












Sangria -
Torre-
molinos











Torre-
molinos











The
beach!













Torremolinos
town centre
















Tapas
for lunch















Alongside
the beach















Hotel
pool











Best
sandcastle
ever












Beach
again












And
again











Spanish
ladies
dancing
in the
street...









...for
local
festival