Fuengirola, Redneck Riviera de España

My brother and I left for Spain with dreams of terraced Mediterranean villas, clear blue water, and briny but delicious Spanish cuisine; what we found instead was a swath of concrete coastline called Fuengirola. This sprawling town, nestled in what is regrettably known as the Costa del Sol, would be our home base for the next week, as we stumbled our way through Andalucía in search of good food and cultural fulfillment.

Before I enter into what will hopefully be a long and scathing description of this tourist trap, I'd like to note the borderline unappealing nature of the name "Fuengirola" itself, which stems either from a gratuitous number of vowels, or merely the fact that it rhymes with crap-ola. With this inelegant word still burning on my tongue, I piloted our rented 2007 Opel Corsa (a charming car) from the Málaga airport down a jam-packed coastal road until we reached Fuengirola's city limits, where a conspicuously-placed billboard proclaimed it to be "a sun of a city."

Ogling the beachside town through the windows of our tiny hatchback, it wasn't long before we committed that cardinal but ultimately excusable sin of which all travelers are at some point guilty. We searched our minds for a way to interpret Fuengirola in the context of our previously-lived experience, to force some kind of connection or comparison with a place that we knew well. Then it hit us with the severity of a stray golf ball -- we had arrived at the heart of the Redneck Riviera of Spain, Andalucía's very own version of Myrtle Beach.

Why Myrtle Beach? Start out with Fuengirola's main coastal drag, the Paseo Maritímo, a narrow two-way street flanked by high-rises on one side and the Mediterranean on the other. Add to that a main street running further inland (a la King's Highway), a highway bypass gloriously dubbed "Autopista del Mediterráneo," and beyond that a bypass of the bypass cut into the arid mountain range spanning the coast (you'll need Telepeaje for that one, Spain's equivalent of EZ-Pass). A maze of perpendicular streets connect these parallel routes to the coast -- almost. Roughly half of them are dead ends, which did much to exaggerate the feeling that we were trapped in the evil clutches of a town that didn't want us to leave.

Fuengirola and Myrtle Beach share a bond that goes beyond highway geography into what I like to call the Redneck Factor. In the summer, we found out, Fuengirola is inundated by what my brother and I came to realize were British rednecks (the term does not exist as such England) in whom we noted traits eerily-similar to those of their Southern-bred, Scotch-Irish-descended counterparts who frequent Myrtle Beach. First off, these primarily working-class people are either bright-white or beet-red (depending, of course, on how exactly how long they've been on "holiday"), usually plump and/or saggy, with moderate to poor teeth and green-inked tattoos on their arms; all in all, not much different from a typical night's gathering at Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede. To match, the Paseo Maritímo is lined with restaurants and pubs that cater exclusively to this crowd, sporting such names as "The Wessex Grill", "Smuggler's Cove", and "Fools and Horses" (named after a British sitcom). At one of these establishments, for instance, it is not uncommon to see a burly middle-aged British couple downing twin pints of Guinness while chatting with their British waitress -- at ten o'clock in the morning.

The last, and ultimately most gratifying, parallel is the endless offering of family (i.e, children's) entertainment that Fuengirola has to offer. If you're longing for the bygone days of the Myrtle Beach Pavilion (which closed in 2006) why not try "Parquelandia" located conveniently on the beach side of the Paseo Maritímo, or, if you're feeling more ambitious, the Parque Acuático de Mijas? You could also hit the "renowned" Fuengirola zoo, the Gran Circo Chino, or even -- dare I say something cultural -- a bullfight in the local bullring (which by the way promises to be an enjoyable and traumatic experience for you and your young children). Last but not least, treat yourself to a relaxing game of mini-golf after a long day of sunburn, shopping, and eating. Fuengirola certainly lags behind Myrtle Beach in this arena (we were only able to find one functioning miniature golf course), which convinced us we could easily curb the market if we opened up our own Spanish-themed mini-golf course using transplanted Myrtle Beach technology (Piratas del Mediterráneo, anyone?).

In a certain sense, Fuengirola's similarity to Myrtle Beach was mildly comforting, since (as in Myrtle) we could joke constantly about the blatant tourism in our midst (i.e., the poolside Japanese restaurant at our apartment building). On the other hand, we felt we were clearly missing out on the trappings of Spanish culture -- after all, we were here to experience Spain, not Sussex. Still, as David commented so lucidly, "When in Fuengirola, do as the British do," which we did by sampling the local cuisine: an English Breakfast consisting of two fried eggs, sausage, bacon, canned tomatoes, mushrooms, and baked beans. It doesn't get much more British than that.

The first night we searched 20 minutes for something echoing Spanish cuisine, passing British, Indian, and Persian restaurants along the way. Finally we settled on a near-empty establishment directly across the street from our building called "Flor y Mar," the name lettered blandly in white on a quaint, blue awning covering the terrace. I insisted, of course, on ordering paella to celebrate our arrival in Spain, which seemed especially momentous since I was trying it for the first time. It wasn't the most delicious paella on the Iberian Peninsula, but we made quick work of it seeing as we hadn't eaten a real meal since we left the States fifteen hours before. The food in Fuengirola should generally be avoided with extreme prejudice (it is pricey and subpar); we soon found ourselves taking advantage of every opportunity to leave this tourist trap and explore other parts of Andalucía.

It was during one of these excursions, to the small city of Ronda, that a friendly gay Spaniard gave us the vocabulary we'd been searching for to describe the commercial sprawl into which we'd been plunged. When we told him we were staying in Fuengirola, he merely laughed and said, "That's right in the middle of it. Enjoy the Costa del Cemento!"

The best way to do that, we learned, was to get as far away from it as possible.