I´m in Torremolinos, a small city in the south of Spain and this place really sucks...there are too many British tourists...it´s as if i never left the UK. Every single person is as roasted as a suckling pig. It´s quite a hilarious sight actually. So instead of seeing hot Spanish men, all I see are pot-bellied old British men looking like roasted lobsters.
I don´t mind if a place is touristy but yet has some local culture...I mean cities like Barcelona, Hong Kong, London etc are filled with tourists but they have character. Here there is NO local culture whatsoever.
The food is also terrible - my friend and i have walked all over in search of Spanish food but all we find are places selling fish & chips, pizza and spaghetti, roast chicken, steak. Like, KILL ME NOW. Thankfully, we found a gem of a restaurant last night thanks to the recommendation of a fellow traveller from South Africa whom I met on a day-trip to Gibraltar yesterday. He told me of this restaurant which he found...it has no English menu and is patronised mainly by locals. Only has one waitress who could speak some English and she recommended some really good food. And I figured I could trust his taste...he looked like the sort of person who knew what good food was.
We met him at the restaurant and he began to recommend food he had eaten for the past few days at the restaurant. True enough, the food was superb...nothing like the horrible Brit fare we had been having. I was really so happy after eating crap food for the past couple of meals. And after dinner, my friend and I went to a small cafe near our hostel and had the best hot chocolate. It was so rich and thick. Pure molten chocolate. Yums.
The beach itself isn´t that fantastic. Though the weather´s hot, the water´s glacial. It´s freaking cold. I´m not swimming in that kind of water! The sand isn´t that fantastic either. And I can only do so much lying on the sea. I love the sea, but I just can´t lie there all day like the Europeans love to do. I need to be paddling or doing something out there!
This morning, we went to Mijas, a village up in the hills. It was much quieter, had fewer tourists, and was really quite charming I must say. That I liked.
My friend and I are heading to Tarifa tomorrow, so hopefully it´ll be a little better there. Please, at least let there be better food!
Anyway, I won´t ever go on last-minute trips again without doing more research. I don´t think I´m that much of a go-with-the-flow person after all!
Posted by DSD at June 24, 2007 2:55 AMI know exactly how you feel about over-tourism. I felt Florence and much of Tuscany was like that...The area of Spain you visited has a name for being overcrowded with British lobster tourists.
I know its not a popular thing to say, but I didnt enjoy my visit to Italy. I would rate it slightly above Spain (bottom) if I had to rank it on a list of places I have visited in Europe.
Too many American tourists in Tuscany, even once we got off the tourist path, the place was abit overrated...though maybe a week at a villa, yes that would be nice.
I heard from a local that Florence has lost much of the charms it once held, which made it a must go destination for so many people. Even in the last 5yrs. I will go back one day in winter to see the art though.
Maybe I am asking for too much? Maybe I just like quiet quaint litle places, devoid of crowd excitment?
Posted by: jase at July 4, 2007 1:03 PMHi dear,
its great to know u have settled down a little. I really envy the traveling and pics are great.
I hope all is well and u plan ur time having lotsa fun. I remembered the times in NYC where it gets lonely. So totally emphatize. A survey once indicated that top 10 places to chat up is the PARK and the Library. so u know wat to do...