Torremolinos

Torremolinos sits on the Costa del Sol in southern Spain. A century ago it was a small, picturesque fishing village; today it is one of the best-known holiday resorts on the Spanish coast, with a Mediterranean climate and kilometres of wide beaches. Its location also suits day trips to Andalusian cities such as Seville, Cordoba and Granada, and to Málaga, only ten kilometres away, with museums like the Museo Picasso and the new Centre Pompidou Málaga. At first glance the town is dominated by the hotel blocks of mass tourism, but a closer look rewards visitors. The tourism boom from the 1960s, still under Franco's dictatorship, brought modern architecture, design and a more liberal nightlife. The Hotel Pez Espada (1959/60), built in the "Relax" style, hosted international stars and was listed as a protected cultural asset in 2006. Other buildings of interest include the Centro Cultural Pablo Ruiz Picasso, the Art Deco inspired Bazar Aladino, the Palacio de Congresos y Exposiciones and the La Nogalera complex.

Torremolinos has a special place in Spanish gay history. In the 1960s international tourism brought a relatively liberal, cosmopolitan and hedonistic atmosphere, attracting celebrities such as Jean Cocteau, Ava Gardner, Rock Hudson, Brigitte Bardot, Marlon Brando, John Lennon and Brian Epstein. Hippies and dropouts discovered the resort, and so did gay men, lesbians and trans people. That is why Spain's first gay bar, Tony's Bar, opened here in 1962, rather than in Madrid or Barcelona.

Gay tourism became an economic factor and a source of foreign currency even during the dictatorship, but it also challenged the moral views of the authorities and police. In the early 1970s raids became more frequent, with hundreds of arrests and deportations of foreign tourists, and several bars were forced to close.