(CNN) – It is the Mediterranean getaway of Spain, a place that for decades has been the ideal place for jet seters, party lovers and package travelers who want to leave their hair down and enjoy the sun, sea and sand. in abundance.
However, as in so many famous tourist destinations across Europe, the Costa del Sol has suffered greatly in the last 18 months, with a number of tourists falling due to the Covid-19 pandemic. However, as travel restrictions ease, this cheeky and beautiful area of southern Spain enjoys a much-needed resurgence. Something that owners of bars, hotels and restaurants are delighted.
Since the 1970s, the British, in particular, have flocked to the Costa del Sol for a week of guaranteed good weather with all the pitfalls of home, from endless pints of long beer to a full English breakfast.
The Costa del Sol has long attracted tourists from all walks of life.
CNN
For some, however, the urge to stay more than a week is too great. And Laura Hutchinson is one of them. Hutchinson and his partner sold their home in Hertfordshire, north London, and decided to pursue their dream of opening a bar in their favorite part of Spain. Then the pandemic struck.
“It has been a dream to live this lifestyle,” he adds. “It’s an external lifestyle, which is not obtained in the UK.”
That doesn’t mean it was easy. Hutchinson says the cost of living is not as low as many believe in his home in Britain, while the lack of visitors has made the first year of his business very difficult. In short, she says, she needs more Britons to visit to help start the business.
However, its tenacious history shows the appeal of the Costa del Sol. Despite the struggles of 2020 and 2021, and the ongoing problems with long-term residency following Brexit, it remains a place where thousands of people just like Hutchinson can’t wait to return.
A place to be free
Experience a front seat view of the southern Spanish jet set getaway with a real person.
“It means freedom,” he says of the city. “The possibility of being yourself, a place where no one can do you any harm. That you can hold hands and that you can kiss or be yourself.”
Torremolinos has a long LGBTQ history. In 1971, the city’s gay population was violently and brutally repressed by Franco’s fascist police, and the dictator acted to curb the freedom for which the city had known itself during the 1960s.
“Since the 1960s, when the first tourist boom in Torremolinos began, people could feel free to walk. It doesn’t matter what identity, sexuality you are or whatever. And it was a mix of classes.”
After the riots in New York at Stonewall in 1969, Franco decided to end these freedoms. More than 300 people were arrested for “violation of good morals and good manners” and Torremolinos was put on hold until the end of the dictatorship in the late 1970s.
However, as the British began to arrive, a new dawn also arrived in Torremolinos and the Costa del Sol.
Motel Jetset
Prince Hubertus Hohenlohe.
CNN
Today the Marbella Club is a key word of luxury in the sun. It was created by Prince Alfonso von Hohenlohe, a Spanish businessman and descendant of Central European royalty who converted the house his own father had built in the area into the current hotel.
Alfonso’s son, Prince Hubertus von Hohenlohe, who has skied in Mexico at the Winter Olympics, had careers as a pop star and photographer and even posed for Andy Warhol. still booming tourism industry.
“This was the original house my grandfather built: Max von Hohenlohe. He came here in 1947 and decided to build a house there. My father was bored and said to me, ‘I don’t just want a house, I want a little hotel. “He lived a lot in Los Angeles, so he thought, ‘I’m going to make a motel where people pass by, put the car next to the room and eat something on the way to Gibraltar.’ And that’s how it all started.”
His father’s condition ensured that the jet he knew in Saint Tropez and St. Moritz went to the Costa del Sol. Actor Sean Connery, racing driver James Hunt, Real Madrid footballers and aristocracy from all over Europe began their pilgrimage.
“They came here and followed Alfonso and his open-mindedness for everyone to enjoy. If you have a bullfighter, a flamenco dancer, a crowned boss and maybe a dictator, all together in one room, this is a fun place, ” he says.
Shabby chic
Marbella Club: a motel for the jetset.
CNN
While the father of Prince Hubertus created the Marbella Club, it was Count Rudolf Graf von Schonberg, the first general manager of the hotel who helped foster the feeling of shabby chic that remains his business card to this day. . Count Rudi, as he is known, still keeps track at the club.
“It was shabby, but it was very elegant, but without glamor, without false pretensions. We always said we have the most beautiful place, even if only with whitewashed walls … It was nothing false,” he says.
Count Rudi says the aim was to maintain the authenticity and simplicity of Andalusia, of the mountains and countryside that rise from the azure waters of the Mediterranean.
“If you have to stick a fake decoration or if you have to invent new things, it’s no longer the original. Here’s the highlight, the safest weather and the lovely people who take care of you.
“All the furniture was adapted to nature. There were no fake things here and, for the most part, they are still silent. Everything adapts to what we had found here. We just completed it.”
While it could be argued that high-rise hotel blocks and bars serving English food on the beaches of the Costa del Sol have caused authenticity to be lost, there is still a strong sense of culture. local in this part of Spain. One of which foreigners and those from these countries want to call.
Flamenco fan
Immerse yourself in the passion and true spirit of one of the most authentic art forms in Spain.
“I love walking in the sun,” says Tony Bryant, another Briton. “I love being here. But in fact, sitting on the beach … I’m always surprised that people come here for two weeks and do nothing but sit on the beach or by the pool and then go back to house like a locust “.
Bryant is not your average British visitor. While moving here to work as a chef 27 years ago, today she is one of the most prominent academic authorities in flamenco.
His love of traditional dance began in a flamenco rock, an authentic show instead of the tablao that is made in hotels for tourists.
“It’s a very, very complex issue,” he says. “And someone said to me one day, and he was a Spanish man, ‘The only way you’ll ever understand this is to come in with the community that really does.’
Bryant is now deeply integrated into this community and has made it his mission to show true flamenco to those who come to the region. It is an art, according to him, that the public must tune in to fully understand. That way, he says, they can hear the elf.
“The elf is like the wind. You can feel and feel, but you can’t touch and you can’t see,” he explains. “It’s so fascinating: once it shows up, you’ll know. I think a lot of people miss it. It’s like anything, if you go to the opera and you don’t really understand opera, you might miss the best part of But with flamenco, if you’re in tune with what they do, how they act, you can feel it. It almost drowns you out and it’s a very quick thing. “
He says it’s not a spiritual thing evoked from the air, but an emotion created by the interaction between dancer and guitarist. Either way, it’s something that only those looking for authentic flamenco can experience. Another reason is to go beyond the entertainment offer at the hotel and look for something more local.
An artist’s paradise
Visit the museum dedicated to the “artistic gift to the world” of Spain.
This desire to look beyond the bars and hotels on the beach has begun to take tourists to the mountains that loom above the resorts, to places like Mijas. This sleepy village, which has struggled this year thanks to the lack of tourists, has become a haven for those looking to do something beautiful and also spend a holiday time. It is as far as you can get to the cube and shovel tourism for which the region is famous.
Mijas art workshops allow visitors to paint ceramic tiles and enjoy their creative side in the most spectacular settings. It is this type of activity that has seen the Costa del Sol diversify, even before the pandemic, to cater for those looking for something other than a week lying on a lounger.
Although amateur artists can travel 20 kilometers by car from the town of Fuengirola, those who prefer to see the finished product can find much to love in the main city of Malaga. For years, this was for many simply the place where planes arrived from all over Europe, before coaches transported them to their hotels and outside one of the most culturally significant places in Spain.
Malaga, like the Marbella Club or the bars and restaurants of Fuengirola, explains why the Costa del Sol still attracts the crowd and will no doubt do so as the pandemic ends up disappearing.
In short, there is something for everyone: from the brigade of buckets and spades, which come two weeks to the beach, to the defunct aristocracy and the new rich who can’t get enough of Marbella. Spaniards also like to come here and experience another side of their country. It is really, as David Gómez Garcia says, inclusive. Everyone is welcome.