One of the numerous reasons why so many people want to live or holiday on the Costa del Sol, apart, of course from the glorious weather which radiates illuminating sunshine well over 300 days of the year, has got to be the variety of activities freely available to everyone. As long as your holiday representative advises you what’s on, you will be spoilt for choice on what or where to go when you venture slightly inland. For the independent traveller, you can pick up one of the free local papers that abound in town shops such as Dunnes, a department store, where Euroweekly can usually be found or Woody’s stationers which supplies the latter in addition to the Sur in English and the Town Crier. All three papers provide a mound of useful information and tips on what’s on in the forthcoming weeks.

The most recent event to take place in the Fuengirola feria ground was the tapas fair which ran over a period of 4 days, from Thursday 2nd August to the Sunday 5th. This venue plays host to a number of diverse attractions as noted quite recently in another article when thousands of Harley Davidson motorcycles descended on the town for their annual convention. On first impressions, there were a surprisingly small number of stalls in relation to the actual size of the ground space available, but then again, how many different variations of tapas can there be? However, this did not detract from the general feel good factor that prevailed as the evening progressed which I’m sure was evident to the Spanish television camera crew who were covering the event. Everybody appeared to enjoy wandering around the stalls against the background sound of salsa music whilst they debated which one appealed most to their taste buds.

In an attempt to limit the cash distributed behind each stall, possibly with the view to avoid random thefts, the organiser’s had arranged a ticket stall where each voucher purchased could be exchanged for the equivalent value of the food. However, unless our party was spectacularly stupid which is, of course, entirely possible, it was not immediately obvious as to the purpose of the ticket stand. After all, it was free to go in so why would you want to buy a ticket? Initial thoughts were maybe it was for a raffle to be announced at the end of the show so on we went in search of sustenance, confident the tickets were irrelevant for our night out, only to be asked to produce them as soon as we had ordered meaning we had to join the, by now, depressingly large queue that had grown in our absence whilst we had wasted time debating the dubious merits of that stand. Perhaps the Spanish had credited people with a little more intelligence than we possessed that night but, in our defence, there was no helpful, explanatory sign on the stand to indicate what the tickets were needed for.

Once we had decided on what to eat, we all made ourselves comfortable in the tabled area in the middle of the fair, leaving our eyes free to roam around and take in the atmosphere. The variety of food was quite extensive although we were surprised to see a number of non Spanish stalls, given the name of the fair. If you wished, you could try some Mexican food, have a pizza or even a Bavarian bratwurst. The tapas stalls that were present looked and smelled absolutely delightful, if a little bit pricey in comparison to some of the other stands but certainly, whatever style of tapas you fancied it was definitely available. For those with a sweet tooth or those with children, there was a satisfyingly large tent with oodles of chocolate and cream concoctions to indulge in. To keep the youngsters amused there was even a large bouncy castle provided. As with all Spanish events, they do appear to have a family bias in mind which, as a new mother myself, is fantastic to witness and experience

As dusk fell and the heat of the day receded, the night air was filled with the mouth watering smells of spices and meat and the sound of people laughing and joking as they relaxed after indulging in some hearty fare. As a relative newcomer to the area, I would thoroughly recommend visiting a tapas fair as the whole experience is so different to any events that are held in the UK, weather not excepting of course. Just be sure to go with lots of cash!