Torre is another firm favorite of ours on the Spanish coast. They have, however, fallen somewhat into our bad books as they no longer allow camper vans to park overnight in EMPTY car parks. Very silly is all I have to say – I will spend my Pesetas elsewhere then thank you very much.

It is still very beautiful (grumble, moan) and so we spend our days at the beach (see The View from The Loo for a photo of our favored spot) and our nights elsewhere. It does come before La Redondela geographically speaking, but I pressed go on La Red too quickly...

There is a beautiful esplanade/promenade where you can walk for miles accompanied by the calls of wild parrots. They are harder to photograph than you may think sitting there in your armchair, so there. See if you can spot them in the photo!

As per usual, I looked up parrots on wiki ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parrot ) and skimmed over for interesting info and read this: Most parrots exhibit little or no sexual dimorphism. What the hell is dat den? I asked. Well, to my relief it is nothing perverted, but just means the boys and the girls look the same, not like most other bird species where the boys are more colorful to attract the girls. Whew, I'm relieved.

According to the Andalusian Tourist Board, there is an unsubstantiated claim that that Torre del Mar once formed part of an ancient Greek settlement known as Manake which is believed to have been destroyed by the Carthaginians, prior to the arrival of the Romans. The Manake apparently left as they weren't allowed to park their chariots on EMPTY car parks...another unsubstantiated claim...

This is yet another seaside town/city that is overrun with tourists in summer, but is comfortably empty in winter (especially the car pa... okay I'll stop now!). There are still lots of people about and many restaurants to be visited – I particularly like the ones that braai (bbq for the non-South Africans among you) the fish on sticks over the coals right on the beach.

Well worth visiting – and tell them about the car parks...

More informative links:
http://www.andalucia.com/province/malaga/torredelmar/home.htm
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Tourism-g667510-
Torre del Mar is a locality on the southern coast of Spain, part of the municipality of Vélez-Málaga, Axarquía, located in the province of Málaga.[1]
It is a popular summer tourist resort for Spanish people.