Alex and his mother check out the Mediterranean Sea.
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Torremolinos is a beach town, in many ways like the beach towns that can
be found along the shorelines in the United States. There are plenty of
places to eat, drink, snack, shop, and sleep. Unlike most American
vacation towns, however, there's a distinct lack of garish distractions,
where bright neon signs and giant statues of cowboys or dinosaurs try to
lure tourists into miniature golf courses, wax museums, stage shows,
petting zoos, and the like. If it were to rain in Torremolinos, a family
with children would be hard pressed to find entertainment. Fortunately
though, the Costa del Sol is on Spain's southern coast and, the rain in
Spain, as everyone knows, falls mainly elsewhere.
Since the Costa del Sol is Europe's playground, towns like Torremolinos
have an international flavor.
Restaurants and cafes along the wide pedestrian causeway have menus posted
in English, French, and German as well as in Spanish. (It would be rather
silly if the menus weren't in Spanish, after all.) And French women bathe
topless on the sandy beaches. (It's true! And no, we don't have
photographs. This is a family web page! We're told, however, that topless
photographs may be available elsewhere on the Internet, if you're
interested in such things.) You can even buy copies of USA Today if
you're desperate enough for American news that you're willing to pay the
equivalent of $3. (Have you ever seen anybody actually buy a copy
of USA Today, by the way? We're convinced that their high
circulation is simply because on every weekday, every hotel guest in the
United States gets a free copy. But we digress.)
So what else is there to say about Torremolinos and the Costa del Sol? Not
much. It's a beach. There's sand, and water. People sit on the sand and
swim in the water. Alex had a good time sitting on the deck outside his
tenth floor hotel room, burying his mother's feet in the sand, looking at
the many stray cats and dogs that are here and everywhere else in Spain,
digging with his shovel, running around, and looking at the various sand
sculptures.
After enjoying a pleasant day and a half in Torremolinos,
Alex and his parents bid farewell to the Mediterrean Sea,
and headed north and east to the medieval city of
Córdoba.
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El Sol
A stray cat
Alex
Alex on the beach in Torremolinos. The Costa del Sol boasts mountains,
palm trees, sun, and sand.
Many sand sculptors ply their trade along the beach in Torremolinos.
Alex's favorite sculpture was this dragon, which might have actually been a sea serpent.
