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Trip Report
Rock climbing and beach time in Spain
A beautiful month spent in the Andalucia region of southern Spain on the Costa del Sol and Malaga mountain range.
EuropeSpain26 days / January 2018
Highs & Lows
Beatiful beachfront promenads, dirt biking and rock climbing.
Post rock-climbing exhaustion. Marbella can be pretty expensive.
Itinerary Overview
1 month in Spain with girlfriend,
Malaga,
We spent a week here on the coast in Torremolinos as Costa del Sol beach bums. Getting here from Malaga airport was easy. Maybe 2 euro bus journey. We had climbed hard in preparation for our holiday so took the first week off to allow our bodies to recover. Torremolinos is a friendly little beachside city/town. It's safe and also known as gay-friendly for UK tourists. Walking along the beautiful promenades, watching the incredible amount of pedigree dogs. I've never seen as many French bulldogs or pugs in my life! The highlight of my trip to Torremolinos was watching the sunset across the sea every evening. The night life was also enjoyable and we traveled to the next town down, Benalmadena, to the recommended 24-hour square, a hub of nightlife, where we danced the night away in Pipers bar. Cheap drinks and great atmosphere.
El Chorro,
El Chorro is a small village located near a small town named Alora. We took a cheap bus here from Malaga and got a taxi to our accommodation, The Olive Branch. The Olive Branch is a campsite/hostel surrounded by beautiful climbing crags and hiking routes. They offer cooking facilities and have a restaurant with 3 cooked meals a day and an honesty shelf where you can buy extras and drinks. The clientele are all outdoors hiker, climber, mountain biker folks and were really easy to get along with. We spent 2 weeks here sport climbing single and multi-pitch routes and in our off days went down to the local rivers. There are plenty of rustic little restaurants beautifully placed on the side of the mountains. The area also serves as part of the Caminito del Rey for any walking enthusiasts.
Marbella
We spent the last week of our holiday in the town of Marbella, the wealthy neighbouring town to Torremolinos. Marbella is known for its expensive restaurants, Orange Square, and long beachfront promenades. We spent many evenings wandering around and soaking up the beautiful culture and architecture of the Old Town whose old walls and cobblestone roads made us feel like we had stepped into another city. Similar to Torremolinos, there was so much to see and soak up just walking down the long promenade, from dogs to views to street entertainers. The marina was enjoyable to see the different yachts docked here but the bars and restaurants definitely out of our price range by the end of our holiday. The highlight of this trip to Marbella was our outdoor dirt biking tour with the Dust Devils. They brought us through riverbed trails and across sand dunes at a comfortable speed and provided us with safety gear and good tuition. The breathtaking views of the sunset over the dunes are a fond memory of this adventure.
Municipality of Torremolinos beach, food, party
1 month in Spain with a girlfriend,
Malaga,
We spent a week here on the coast in Torremolinos as Costa del Sol beach bums. Getting here from Malaga airport was easy. Maybe 2 euro bus journey. We had climbed hard in preparation for our holiday so took the first week off to allow our bodies to recover. Torremolinos is a friendly little beachside city/town. It's safe and also known as gay-friendly for UK tourists. Walking along the beautiful promenades, watching the incredible amount of pedigree dogs. I've never seen as many French bulldogs or pugs in my life! The highlight of my trip to Torremolinos was watching the sunset across the sea every evening. The night life was also enjoyable and we traveled to the next town down, Benalmadena, to the recommended 24-hour square, a hub of nightlife, where we danced the night away in Pipers bar. Cheap drinks and a great atmosphere.
El Chorro Rock-climbing
El Chorro,
El Chorro is a small village located near a small town named Alora. We took a cheap bus here from Malaga and got a taxi to our accommodation, The Olive Branch. The Olive Branch is a campsite/hostel surrounded by beautiful climbing crags and hiking routes. They offer cooking facilities and have a restaurant with 3 cooked meals a day and an honesty shelf where you can buy extras and drinks. The clientele are all outdoors hiker, climber, mountain biker folks and were really easy to get along with. We spent 2 weeks here sport climbing single and multi-pitch routes and in our off days went down to the local rivers. There are plenty of rustic little restaurants beautifully placed on the side of the mountains. The area also serves as part of the Caminito del Rey for any walking enthusiasts.
Marbella A week on the beach to allow our bodies to recover from climbing.
Marbella
We spent the last week of our holiday in the town of Marbella, the wealthy neighbouring town to Torremolinos. Marbella is known for its expensive restaurants, Orange Square, and long beachfront promenades. We spent many evenings wandering around and soaking up the beautiful culture and architecture of the Old Town whose old walls and cobblestone roads made us feel like we had stepped into another city. Similar to Torremolinos, there was so much to see and soak up just walking down the long promenade, from dogs to views to street entertainers. The marina was enjoyable to see the different yachts docked here but the bars and restaurants definitely out of our price range by the end of our holiday. The highlight of this trip to Marbella was our outdoor dirt biking tour with the Dust Devils. They brought us through riverbed trails and across sand dunes at a comfortable speed and provided us with safety gear and good tuition. The breathtaking views of the sunset over the dunes are a fond memory of this adventure.
Q & A
Anything go wrong during the trip?
Nothing went wrong but it was definately unpleasent having bar-pullers hassling you every 5 meters to come into their bar and not taking no as an answer.Packing tips?
Sun cream, shorts, baseball hat and sunglasses.Transportation Tips?
Public transport is easy to navigate and cheap.
Lodging
We stayed in a little AirB&B beachfront flat overlooking the ocean. There's a countless amount at reasonable rates.
The Olive Branch Hostel/Campsite. Great location for climbing and a hub for outdoorsy people. Restaurant on site.
We stayed in an AirB&B on the beachfront promenad. A cheap apartment with pool and cooking facilities. There's no short supply of them.