My First Time in Fuengirola – A Travel Blog
My first time in Fuengirola!
My expectations were honestly pretty low — I was expecting something closer to a hastily assembled Asian beach village than a proper Spanish town. Luckily, I was wrong. Beautiful little plazas, good restaurants, and lovely Andalusian architecture were easy to find during my five-night trip.
Since I’m an avid padel player, I managed to fit in at least one game or training session per day. When you have a 9:30 PM match one evening and a 9:30 AM session the next morning, it keeps you out of trouble! 🙂
Getting to Fuengirola
Getting from Malaga Airport to Fuengirola is incredibly easy. The train connection takes just 35 minutes to Fuengirola’s city centre, and along the way you can hop off at Torremolinos, Benalmádena, or Los Boliches. The fare was a mere €3.20 each way. As a travel destination, Fuengirola is exceptionally accessible!
The other option is to take a taxi — the 23 km journey takes less than 20 minutes. I had to resort to this on my outbound trip when RyanAir was delayed and I missed the last train. The ride cost €44.
That train connection, combined with a well-functioning airport, made for a surprisingly pleasant travel day. From stepping onto the train at Los Boliches to clearing the airport security check took only 39 minutes!
If you also plan to explore the nearby villages, I strongly recommend renting a car, as driving is by far the easiest way to get around and discover new places.
Luckily, I had a friend on the ground ready to organise padel sessions and also trips on his scooter — we did tourist runs to at least Mijas, Benalmádena, and Higuerón. If you don’t have a car or scooter available, book a full-day guided tour and you can enjoy mountain scenery, a beautiful Andalusian village, and the atmosphere of a luxury marina at a reasonable price.
Things to See in Fuengirola
Paseo Marítimo — It’s hard to avoid this seafront promenade if you’re moving around Fuengirola. The Paseo starts at Sohail Castle and stretches a full eight kilometres towards Benalmádena, ending at the Carvajal roundabout. The Paseo Marítimo is pleasant and comfortably wide for walking, but it started looking fairly similar after a while, so you might not want to walk it end to end just for the views. It does make for a great walk if you’re enjoying the sunshine, though.
Playa de los Boliches — Fuengirola’s most famous beach, right next to the town centre. In early April there weren’t many people on the beach yet, but I’ve heard that in summer you’d be wise to claim your spot on the sand early. Fun fact: “Los Boliches” actually means bowling alleys. I didn’t know that until yesterday either! 🙂
Plaza de la Constitución — A beautiful square right in the heart of town, surrounded by pleasant restaurant and bar terraces, plus a stylish church (Parroquia de Nuestra Señora del Rosario).
Plaza Chinorros — A smaller square packed with stylish restaurants and people. This one is also right in Fuengirola’s centre, so you can easily pop by for a drink in the early evening.
Castillo Sohail — The number one sight in many people’s books, but it was far enough from Los Boliches, where I was staying, that I never quite “made it” there — even though I passed near it several times on my way to padel sessions…
Bioparc — A park-like zoo where I’ve actually visited the one in Valencia. The animals have plenty of room to move around, and several different species share the same enclosures — there are noticeably fewer cages than in other zoos I’ve been to. Based on my Valencia experience, I warmly recommend it!
Restaurants in Fuengirola
As you might expect, Fuengirola’s restaurants offer all kinds of experiences. I’m not much of a fine dining person myself, but I do appreciate quality food and tried to find places that suited me. I especially wanted to find good Thai food, since in Spain I’d never managed to find any despite several attempts. In Finland, on the other hand, there’s a large Thai community and plenty of quality Thai restaurants.
Here are a few of my most memorable dining experiences. I found these restaurants through recommendations from a couple of Finns who’ve lived in Fuengirola for years, as well as reviews on Google and Foursquare.
Sukiyaki – Japanese Buffet
The place was pleasant and the staff friendly, even though some of them spoke quite limited English or Spanish. You could order 5 dishes per person every 10 minutes via a tablet, and sometimes a robot delivered the food. Quite a fun concept. At times we thought they’d forgotten part of our order, but the ordered treats just arrived surprisingly late — and we’d already ordered more in the meantime.
For a Chinese-run buffet, the sushi was surprisingly good, and some dishes were even excellent. We didn’t try any of the meat options at all. You could freely order and eat as much as you wanted, and two hungry young athletes certainly did! Every 10 minutes we already had the next five dishes picked for each of us, and the second we could, we fired off the next order. 🙂
Sawasdee – Thai Delicacies
I found this through a friend of a friend’s list, and I’d also spotted the place on Foursquare and Google Maps. Good Thai restaurants in Spain have been few and far between, but at least my noodle dish was good and authentic (I lived in Thailand for over 5 years, and Thai dishes in Spain have often been a bit too “adapted” or “creative”). All the servers appeared to be Thai, and I even placed my order in Thai, which was met with a smile. 🙂 Not much left of that language skill for anything else, though.
The restaurant itself looked much like the other places along the Paseo Marítimo, but I came for the food, which was excellent and authentically Thai.
Address: Paseo Maritimo 98
Asian Fusion 365 – Diverse Asian Cuisine
The name says it all — a diverse selection of food from across Asia. My dish was made from quality ingredients and was top-notch. The terrace didn’t have much traffic passing by and the atmosphere was pleasantly relaxed.
On the downside, there was a slight language barrier with one of the servers when ordering. It also took nearly 30 minutes to get the food, and when I ordered a drink while waiting in the heat, I had to ask again after 10 minutes. Plus the bill included an extra drink, which was of course quickly corrected when asked.
Address: Calle Sardina, behind Hotel Yaramar
La Rozuela – Spanish Menu del Día in Los Pacos
A traditional Spanish Menú del Día — starter + main course + bread + drink (yes, including alcoholic drinks) — for just €11. The food was very traditional Spanish cuisine: for starters you could choose from salad, lasagne, or spaghetti, and the mains were quite hearty, like deep-fried calamari rings or pork, naturally accompanied by chips. The food was reasonably good — actually very similar to what you’d find elsewhere in Spain. The servers spoke fluent Spanish. 🙂
Address: Los Pacos town centre
Beyond the restaurants above, I also wanted to try Indian food, since British tourists usually attract good Indian restaurants too. I’ve heard that England’s most popular restaurant dish is Chicken Tikka Masala. I also meant to visit Burro (which means “butter” in Italian and “donkey” in Spanish — you hear the latter word a lot on padel courts, by the way…), but my tourist guide had to cancel dinner, so I ended up going for pizza on my own. (Do try Burro’s risottos though! I ate them several times in Alicante and they’re absolutely brilliant.)
Speaking of cafés — the sandwich selection alone was enough to tell me I wasn’t in traditional Spain anymore. The sandwiches were varied and high quality, and I didn’t have to specifically ask for vegetables. I’ve eaten a fair few baguettes from the same café chain (Granier) in Barcelona, and usually you’ll find tomato sauce plus cheese, ham, or something similar between the bread — but not even a cucumber or lettuce leaf in the standard ones. Let alone avocado, salmon, or other treats, which Fuengirola’s Granier had in abundance.
Benalmádena and Mijas
Benalmádena pueblo, like Mijas pueblo, sits higher up on the hills rather than right by the sea. I was slightly confused because right next to Fuengirola there’s a place called Mijas, but then Mijas Pueblo turned out to be noticeably further away — and that’s the place people usually mean when they talk about “Mijas.” So in both cases, head straight for the hilltop villages to admire the idyllic little towns.
Benalmádena pueblo was pretty but very small — it didn’t take long to walk around and more or less see everything. The houses were white, there were charming little squares, and locals could already be found mid-morning chatting among themselves in the shade with a beer in front of them. The tourists, meanwhile, were soaking up the sun. 🙂
Benalmádena (not the pueblo) sits along the coast between Torremolinos and Fuengirola and is noticeably more “Spanish” as a town than Fuengirola. The centre seemed quite lively, although there weren’t many tourist attractions as such. You can also make the trip between Benalmádena and Fuengirola by boat, which is a nice option. I always try to get out on the water when the weather’s good — there’s just something so pleasant about floating along. 🙂
In the summer heat, park benches and their shading trees get serious use in sun-baked Spain. I read somewhere that “in summer, only tourists and dogs walk in the sun” — although I don’t think I’ve seen many dogs doing it either. 🙂 Personally, I’m already seeking shade behind traffic light poles by June at the latest…
Mijas pueblo was also very similar — full of white houses and beautiful squares. Thanks to the tourists, there are even more restaurants than in a typical Spanish town, and at the ice cream counter there were other slightly sunburned Finns besides us.
Other Observations About Fuengirola
The best way to get around, at least in Fuengirola and the surrounding area, was clearly a scooter. It got me to padel sessions and nearby villages effortlessly, and finding a parking spot was never an issue. On a scooter you can also easily weave past traffic lights and busy roads, though I still have a bit of learning to do there.
