The actual coast isn't uniform from say Malaga to Estepona -there are tacky, touristy places that are cheap e.g. Mijas and tacky touristy places that are expensive e.g. Marbella.
I don't consider Mijas to be cheap, or tacky. And its not ALL about tourists either. Its a big area as well as a pueblo, and caters for all tastes. I wouldn't dream of making sweeping derogatory statements about a place I don't live in.
Apologies if you are offended ...but the parts I have seen were imo not nice, especially at night and in summer.. Just like parts of Marbella are definitely unattractive. Funnily enough, I was going to ask if there were more to places like Mijas, Torrevieja, Torremolinas and so on than the not very attractive touristy bits that I have seen.. When people talk about visiting London or any large touristy city they do not normally visit the posher suburbs. They take their view from the centre.
I have a friend who lives in Benalmadena which also has parts I wouldn't spend much time in. He too was offended when I asked why he had chosen to live there. But when I visited I found that where he lives is quiet and not at all like the small downtown touristy area. But that small area is the part that gives Benalmadena its image.
Fact is that places like Mijas, Benalmadena, some places on the Costa Blanca are routinely referred to on tv /radio as the 'cheaper' holiday resorts. It was stated in an earlier post that it gets cheaper the further east you go. That's a generalisation accepted as fact. Tackiness: well, it's in the eye of the beholder and has nothing to do with cost. I'm sure that there are very attractive, expensive parts of all these towns but they do not get highlighted.
Marbella is also referred to as tacky, tawdry, full of wealthy posers and not-so-wealthy wannabes.
I think that's a fairly accurate picture, to be honest, and I don't get hot under the collar when I hear it described in those terms. Our perceptions are of necessity based on subjective experience. I think of Venice as a place of many thieves as I had my bag stolen there and the police station was full of robbed tourists.. Unfair, I know, but that was the experience that coloured that and my subsequent visits.
I lived for years in the UK in a town that was described in very derogatory terms by many who didn't live in it and many who did. I agreed with the criticisms as I personally agreed that it was a dump. The day I left it was the happiest of my life.
) I think the temperatures must have been in the mid-forties at least. Whatever, it was too hot to do anything that required a lot of physical effort.
