Review date: 05 August 2005 a HotelStreet visitor from York, England wrote:

Review Subject: The Town of Torre
Review title: "Walk, Cycle Or Jog The Lovely Seafront"
Travel date: July 2005
At first glance Torre del Mar looks a little flat and less picturesque than some of the coastal villages along this stretch of the eastern costa, (like the over-touristy Nerja) but stay a while (we have been returning for seven years) and you will fall in love with the town.

Although it sounds like a cliché, it is still very 'Spanish' and the local population enjoy the town to its full. The mile long promenade and the scores of excellent restaurants, ice-cream and coffee cafes and chiringuitas (beach cafes) which line it is my favourite part of town. Just buy a large glass of rioja (1 euro 50!) and gaze out to sea. Swimming is great too. If you want to eat out at 11pm you will always find somewhere. Explore any side street where people sit outside their homes on dwarf chairs gossiping and you will find more cheap tapas bars, wonderful fried fish cafes (try the aubergines with honey!) and places to chill without the sound of a single English voice.

I love the weekly market (you won't get pick pocketed like you do in Barcelona) and the ultramarinos - little corner shops, named after the produce that used to come from overseas, where I can find a hair slide, a delicious cherimoya (custard apple) or a litre bottle of the local sweet Malaga vino de terrano which costs about two euros! Try cooking chicken in it - wow! If you want a home take away look for the 'pollo asados' signs and you can get the cooked veg to go with it too.

On Sundays you will find an influx of inland people coming to enjoy the seafront with their extended families and on festival day, when the statue of the Virgin from the church is popped on a boat and dragged out to sea to bless the fish and the fishing boats, nothing closes until the small hours.

If you get tired of the little shops in Torre, wander a mile inland to El Ingenio, the huge shopping centre where you can buy anything. At Eroski, the supermarket, the fish counter rivals Harrods and they also have my favourite jewellery store, Bijou Brigitte. Torre del Mar, go there! And have a fino or a manzanilla for me in the Bar/Restaurante Saladero (in Calle Saladero Viejo) where the seafood tapas is unmissable - don't sit at a table (a little pricey) but sit at the bar and just nibble all evening! (Whoops, my best kept secret has just become public knowledge).