El dia de todos los santos

We've been here nearly a month now and have stuck to our familiar haunts, so today we thought we should go further afield. It was definitely a beach day (30 C at 10 a.m.!) so we piled beach kit into the car and headed for Torrox, between here and Málaga. 

We thought we'd visit the old town first (up on the hill, as opposed to the new coastal developments), so followed our noses till we were confronted by a policeman directing a substantial flow of traffic down what appeared to be a cul-de-sac. We duly followed and found ourselves in a large and packed car park, next to the cemetery. Duh. It's All Saint's Day, a very important holiday in Spain. Everyone who can goes to their native village/town to visit family graves, so everyone bar us was carrying flowers, secateurs, stepladders, brushes and dustpans.

The cemetery was absolutely buzzing; there was a lovely festive atmosphere as people met and chatted, probably having not seen each other since last time. As you can see, Spanish cemeteries are like apartment blocks, with people as close in death as they were in life. In France, chrysanthemums are de rigueur for Toussaint, and most people just buy a bunch to put on the family tomb. But here people were carefully making beautiful arrangements with all manner of flowers; the air was filled with the heady scent of roses. Crowds thronged the narrow aisles. It was a real highlight of the day.

From here we walked around town and had a drink in the plaza outside the Ayuntamiento, which had been prettified with umbrellas in Andalucian colours. I'd have blipped these if the cemetery hadn't been the defining experience of Torrox. Most photogenic day in quite a while!

It was 2 pm by the time we got to the beach in Torrox Costa. It was very hot, but windy too,  so we didn't stay quite as long as intended, repairing to a nearby bar for a light lunch at the very Spanish hour of 3:30 before heading homewards.