Rincon de la Victoria is lining up a busy three days from Friday 25 to Sunday, September 27 for International Tourism Day. Food stalls, skateboards, classic motors, free heritage visits and a late concert by Manuel Lombo are all on the card. This fifth edition of the local award also honours Turisgar, a hometown passenger-transport firm with 57 years on the road.

Oktoberfest takes over Plaza Al Andalus

Plaza Al Andalus hosts a beer festival from Friday until Sunday. Craft ales, international food stalls and live music run across the square for families as well as evening crowds. Saturday then shifts the action to Ignacio Echeverria Skatepark for a skateboard championship from 11am to 9pm, with sign-up between 10.30am and midday. Gibralfaro Rally cars are due back through town on both Saturday and Sunday, so expect engines as well as decks.

Sunday opens caves and Villa Antiopa for free

World Tourism Day itself is on the Sunday. Cueva del Tesoro and Villa Antiopa offer free entry all day, no booking needed for a wander. Four guided tours, at 11am, 12.30pm, 5pm and 6.30pm, do need a reserved spot. Cueva de la Victoria opens for two extra slots at 10am and 12.30pm, ten people each, booked via turismoenrincon.es. Those caves have long pulled visitors on the eastern Costa del Sol; EWN has covered earlier free days and the Tesoro’s visitor boom.

Mini “tortas locas” raise cash for Caritas

Midday on Sunday, Plaza Pepe El Boticario fills with “Locas por Rincon”: two thousand mini crazy cakes sold to raise money for Caritas. Nightfall moves to Plaza de la Iglesia in Benagalbon.

Turisgar collects the Tourism Day award at 9pm, then Manuel Lombo takes the stage, with Costa del Sol tourism backing the gig.

Official World Tourism Day context sits with the UN World Tourism Organization. Bookings and extra detail live on the council tourism site and its ticket pages.

Families in Almuñecar say a polite refusal is not good enough any more. AFAVIDA, the town’s association for relatives of people with Alzheimer’s, has lined up events through September and October around World Alzheimer’s Day, on 21 September, backing the national slogan from CEAFA: “El NO ya no es respuesta.” That campaign calls for people living with dementia, and those who look after them, to be heard, and for treatments and services already available to be put within reach.

Mayor Juan José Ruiz Joya praised nearly two decades of local work. AFAVIDA has backed families for more than 19 years, he said, and the town hall should stay close and help that work keep going. He also pointed to a recent Good Practice certificate in non-pharmacological therapies, awarded through ConFEAFA and the Andalucian health quality agency ACSA.

Social services councillor María del Carmen Reinoso said council backing is not parked in one department. Different municipal teams are already pulling together for the October 4 walk. A missing-persons safety plan with the association is due to be signed in the coming weeks.

AFAVIDA president Ana María Guerrero Lozano put it plainly: Alzheimer’s is never only a diagnosis. It is people, and relatives whose whole routine can be turned upside down. Listening to what they actually need, she argued, matters as much as therapy rooms.

What’s else on in Almuñecar this autumn

A Mass of remembrance will be held at 8pm on 21 September in the Iglesia de la Encarnacion. Information and collection tables go up on Friday 25 September, from 10am to 1pm, in Carrera de la Concepcion by Bar El Chato and at the Arco de Triunfo on Paseo Blas Infante during the market. Sunday October 4 brings the 3km walk “Cada paso suma recuerdos”, setting off at 11am from Estadio Municipal Francisco Bonet; race numbers are already on sale. Programming wraps on October 16 at 6pm with a certificate ceremony at Hotel Bahia Almuñecar on Avenida Juan Carlos I.

Daily care behind the campaign

Thirty-two people now attend the non-pharmacological therapy centre on Calle Arcos del Ingenio, 11. Another 10 join a three-day-a-week cognitive workshop backed by the town hall. Services cover memory and sensory work, speech therapy, physiotherapy, psychological assessment and support for carers, plus transport, meals and mutual-aid groups.

An active-ageing programme in Jete, Otivar, Lentegi and Salobrena currently reaches 72 people, with help from Diputacion de Granada and those town halls.
World Health Organization figures put 57 million people living with dementia in 2021, with nearly 10 million new cases a year. Alzheimer’s accounts for about 60 to 70 per cent of those cases. AFAVIDA’s message this month is that families on the Costa Tropical should not be left to carry that load alone.