Costa del Sol, Spain Travel - Guides
Spain Guide - View Guide here to help with your travel planning, find valuable details on the area including local activities & attractions, recommended restaurants, favorite shopping areas, walking tours, suggested itineraries and events.
Whether looking for a family vacation or a romantic getaway, Spain has it. Throughout Spain there are so many choices for travel activities, tours, lodging (popular hotels, villa stays and vacation rentals), and big & small cruises that travel in Spain promises to be an unforgettable travel experience. You can build your personal trip planning itinerary online and choose to explore the area on your own or take our travel theme tours that make it easy to experience travel as you like it.Estepona, Spain, Costa del Sol - Serves Up Hope and Happiness in the South of Spain…
Estepona sits serenely on the Costa del Sol in the South of Spain. Estepona is a special village preserving its Andalusian heritage and Spanish roots. About 1 hour drive from the maddening crowds of Malaga, Spain and a little less from the motley tourists in Torremolinos, Estepona is the kind of find a traveler seeks out to calmly experience a different culture…and enjoy all it has to offer.
Proof of Esteponians respect for local customs, as well as modern advances, exhibits during their San Isidro Festival in May. Townspeople and shop owners populate paved streets covered with palm branches to both pray and toast their patron saint, San Isidro. Stage one of a long parade allows bellowing bulls pulling ancient plows to be revered and feared at the same time. Stage four of the same event salutes huge, green and gold John Deere tractors turning tightly on age-old streets. The entire village participates to cheer on bull handlers and tractor drivers…so will you!
On the west side of town at anytime of the year, you can check in without reservations to the mightiest and most marvelous seafood restaurant. Located in the port, proudly painted red with seaside wide-open windows, La Escollera serves right from the dock, recently caught seafood, that locals time for lunch or dinner, depending on the seasonal catch. Fresh, fresh, fresh chopitos (baby squid) and anchovies were in high demand when I ate there (3 times in one week!!...note: repeat restaurants not usually recommended when traveling!!). The food and the cost- complimented with a green white wine or a Cruzcampos beer just doesn’t get much better than this!
Shopping is not designer nor discount….it’s just simple, easy, and fun. Mom and Pop shops survive here. Seeking a regional piece of jewelry or a handmade comb or a lace mantilla, no problem. A pair of shoes, a bathing suit, a leather belt, all within reach. The banter of bargaining found along the beach and other coastal cities in minimal here. Here, local shop owners only want to kindly serve your shopping needs.
On the beaches, for delicious cheap eats, try the chiringuitos (summer only restaurants) with their poles and thatched hut roofs dotting the beaches along the Costa del Sol. Food and drink are found in most. Those found along Estepona’s 12 miles of beach front, somehow seem kinder and gentler than many in Malaga or Puerto Banus. On a breezy cloudy day we crossed the sand, settled into a table, sat for hours admiring the lovely view and the local visitors. I swear I struck up a conversation with a man who could have been Ernest Hemmingway’s fraternal cousin. A couple of Cruzcampo’s later he was entertaining us and the band of regulars with stories of the seas and a rock band tour he vaguely recalled. After we had yet another great day in the little town of Estepona, we flip-flopped back to our digs and reviewed insights into today’s Spanish culture.
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