Dinner on the Promenade

After Gibraltar we went back (and Peter hates backtracking!) to a seaside town near Malaga called Rincon de la Victoria. There was a festival on in Malaga that we thought would be good to go to and accommodation in Malaga was nearly impossible. Rincon de la Victoria was about 15 minutes away from Malaga.

The first night we drove to the outskirts of Malaga and took the train into near the centre. The festival comprised a number of activities spread over a number of venues. The Flamenco show was supposed to be a 10 minute walk from the train terminal at the Town Hall, starting at 11 pm. 40 minutes later!! we get to the Town Hall and there is nothing there at all. It is shut. Dead. There were lots of people around who had been watching earlier shows so it was still a busy place. We had walked 7 km by the time we got back to the train.

We got to bed about 1am
Festive site after closing time on central pedestrian mall at midnight - Malaga


The next night we thought we would try again. There were some shows on at the Fairpark. We put "Fairpark in Malaga"m into Google and got four Fairparks - one of which was a pedestrian mall lined with designer shops etc we had walked down at midnight the night before.

We gave up and elected to go down to the seaside at Rincon de la Victoria for the evening.

The beach at Rincon is about 60-80m wide and 800m long. It is very flat. The sea is almost as flat so people stand in the water to cool off rather than swim in the surf. Right at the back of the beach is a promenade and behind that are restaurants, houses, hotels and shops. It is a pedestrians delight.

We got to the beach at abut 8.20pm. The sun sets about 9.00pm. The temperature was about 33C. The beach was still crowded with lots of sun umbrellas, people sunbathing and swimming. And crowded means "European-crowded" not "NZ-crowded".

We went to a bar/restaurant and, because we were so early, we got a table right next to the promenade. Just across from the restaurant was an exit from the beach that had an open air shower where people could wash off the sand and salt.

We ordered a drink and watched as the people went out for their evening stroll along the promenade before dinner. A mix of families, the elderly with some in wheelchairs, those just off the beach and the well dressed going out for dinner, the very slim to the very overweight. We guessed they were mostly Spanish tourists having their summer break at the seaside. It seemed that everyone in town was out for a walk. It was amazing to see the mix of people all out enjoying themselves.

The beach seems to be a totally different place to the promenade. On the beach bikinis were almost the universal beach wear for women of all ages and sizes. Very over-weight women in a bikini were not a pretty sight but no one turned a hair. A mother and daughter (9 or 10 yrs old) came up the beach, both stripped off and washed the sand off under the beach shower, got dressed and walked on home. No one cared or even thought it unusual. But on the promenade, 1 m off the beach, almost everyone was dressed for a walk.

We ordered dinner about 9.15pm, one of the earliest tables to be served with dinner. Very nice fish but hard to get a decent mixed salad. Finished by 10.30 so an early night.


 
The pedestrian mall where we had dinner - Rincon de la Victoria

The 'Hamery' in a supermarket




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