Spain, Torremolinos

Torremolinos is a tourism-oriented city and municipality on the Costa del Sol of the Mediterranean, immediately to the west of the city of Málaga, in the province of Málaga in the autonomous region of Andalusia in southern Spain. A poor fishing village before the growth in tourism beginning in the late 1950s, Torremolinos was the first of the Costa del Sol resorts to develop. It is very popular with British tourists and has a large British expatriate population. Areas of the town are dominated by high-rise development.

Torremolinos had its heyday during the eighties and into the nineties, but over the last five years there has been a noticeable shortening of the "high" season, and a change in the demographic structure of visitors. It continues to have a thriving indigenous gay population, which it continues to attract. It also attracts families, but the young fun-loving 18-30 visitors are being replaced by an older crowd of "snowbirds" - pensioners travelling overseas, over winter for the sunshine. Nowadays, with no straight nightclubs open in Torremolinos, younger tourists are simply moving further down the coast to Fuengirola, and Marbella.

The Belgian band Sttellla wrote a song about Torremolinos (simply called Torremolinos), which is their biggest hit to date.

The synthesizer duo Soft Cell also mentioned Torremolinos in their first, relatively minor club hit, Memorabilia.

Torremolinos is one of the settings in the novel The Drifters by James A. Michener.

History

Torremolinos has developed more in the last 40 years than in the last thousand. It does have a long history.

Prehistoric human skulls have been found in the limestone caves that litter the mountain behind the town. One of them known as the Tapada cave yielded evidence of Bronze Age inhabitation in the shape of a Bell Beaker burial of around 1500BC. Just to the north under the aeroplanes flightpath is the location of Cerro de Villar which was the site of the island city in the Phonecian period.

Torremolinos first attracted the crowds in 1498 when the Catholic kings and their vast number of troops camped here during the siege of Málaga. The original name was "Molinos de la Torre" (the mills of the tower). In 1502, it came under the rule of Málaga with the name of "Torres de Pimentel" (the towers of Pimentel), in honour of Rodrigo Pimentel, Count of Benavente to whom most of the lands were given in thanks for his cooperation with horses and food during the siege of Málaga. The town evolved as a thriving centre for fishing, primarily centred around La Carihuela; an area just east of town where a few bona fida fishermen still remain, and some of the best seafood restaurants can be found.

Bars and restaurants opened by the dozen and visitors came from all over the world and included well known writers and artists, as well as starlets, aristocrats and seasoned travellers.