A free night in Fuengirola, Costa del Sol
Zagan the motorhome is having some fun in the sun on the Spanish Costa del Sol. Tonight he is living it up in a free car park, right in the middle of Fuengirola (N36.54890, W4.61957), along with about 20 other motorhomes from various nations.
We could easily have found ourselves staying at the aire in Rincon de la Victoria. Catherine and her husband Fernando are so welcoming, and you can tell they are motorhomers by the way the aire and service point are set up, just how you would want it if you were designing one yourself. On Saturday evening it cooled slightly (the day was still around 30ºC), which was just enough for us to go out knowing that Charlie would be OK in the van with the windows open. Leaving it as late as possible, we had drinks with Alan and Gill before heading off towards the beach at 9.30pm.
Goat and sheep o’clock as the herd passes by the aire each evening
The restaurant we chose had a few people in it when we arrived, and being Spain more families arrived as we ate. By the time we left it was packed. We opted for a couple of starters; blood sausage with rice and deep fried aubergines and were already full after eating these. For main course Jay went for chicken while I plumped for red mullet which was cooked on a stick by a fire in a boat by the beach – it seems to be the done thing around here. I manned up and removed the heads myself (normally Jay’s job) and after a drawn out battle with a lot of fish bones, I was stuffed.
This morning when we woke the sky had clouded over, a good day for moving on. We packed up and said our farewells before hitting the Sunday quiet roads to Fuengirola. As we approached we both recoiled slightly at the sight of the packed in high rise apartments from the motorway, but we managed to resist the urge to change our destination and drove into the middle of the town to find a huge car park with plenty of fellow motorhomes in it. I checked with some British neighbours next door but one, and all is good. No problems parking here, and the beach is just a block away.
Fuengirola is ready for the summer masses
After a quick brew we headed out to see the sea. Charlie joined us, so our pace was about the same as most of the other visitors around here. They are either quite a bit older than us, or quite a bit older and on a mobility scooter (those are the ones we couldn’t keep up!). With it being the weekend, luckily the place was also alive with Spaniards who were relaxing on the dark sand beach, splashing in the sea or fending off the umpteen lookie-lookie men flogging designer bags, sunglasses, belts, sarongs or wooden statues.
Lookie-Lookie – if you aren’t wearing a sarong on the beach you are fair game to be sold one
We’ve reached a decision to spend a bit more money on eating out while we are in Spain as the Spanish food is super tasty, cheap and often something you wouldn’t get at home. As our stopover for tonight was free, and Charlie needed a rest (honest), we stopped off at a cafe overlooking the sea for a drink and to watch the world go by.
While we watch the world go by from a cafe, the high rise dwellers must have an even better view
Back in the van the air is stuffy as there is no breeze today. It’s still cloudy so at least we aren’t craving shade, but because we’re in a car park we can’t sit out on our chairs. Paying to park in an aire does have its advantages, but we like to mix it up and being here means we are right in the middle of things. Charlie is the luckiest of the three of us, as he’s wrapped in a cold damp towel and snoring away on the floor of the van. He’s nice and cool, as he can’t sleep when he’s too hot.
Jay might be tempted to try and catch us something for tea like the locals
Meanwhile Jay and I are plotting our escape from the hot box with a walk along the seafront later. Fuengirola is much nicer to see than it looked from the motorway, but it isn’t holding us and tomorrow we’ll move on, maybe giving the Costa del Sol one more look further south.
Ju x
Well, it’s a fair bit warmer than your recommendation North of Alta, Langfjordveien (and I haven’t caught any fish yet (any tips much appreciated) and nearly lost my spinner in the weed), but we are much enjoying Norway having sailed through the green lane from Finland with our bags-in-boxes.
The reason I’m sending this is to let you know that your 2016 POI files wouldn’t work on my Tomtom Go; tried downloading a couple of times with no luck. The .bmp file was unreadable by a viewer (something funny about headers) and there was no sign of any of the stopping places on the Tomtom. I fixed the .bmp by loading it into Gimp and then exporting it again. Don’t know what it did, but it works fine now. The .ov2, I uploaded to http://www.poieditor.com/, deleted the two credit entries at the beginning and then downloaded it back. Works fine now.
If you would like copies, send me an email address.
Anyway, we much appreciate all your advice and humour; keep up the good work.
John
Hi John, many thanks for your efforts, if you could email the fixed files to julieandjason@ourtour.co.uk that would be great! Cheers, Jay
BTW: If you are heading in the Gibraltar direction, there is a parking place at Mijas Costa (LA CALA DE MIJAS in CC-infos I believe) by Noria Golf, where we were directed to a manhole behind the loos to empty a cassette. You’ll need some sort of tool to open it. There was a market there some days.
Thanks John. We’re in Cala de Mijas now. A bit quieter than Fuengirola!
John’s cousin who lives in Mijas Costa took us a few blocks back from the beach, where the locals go and we were pleasantly surprised. Like you we saw the high rise buildings and cringed. The Burstner van parked next to you could have been us, except ours is in the drive! #jealous #addictedtoyourblog #keeptravelling
Best wishes
No problem on ipad to read your posts, and on 22May all was fine too! Hope all is sotred soon!
Thanks guys. We’ll get it nailed, just takes patience (which I’m short on to be fair, but in this case, have no choice!). Jay