Originally Posted by cricketman

If you haven't noticed, youth unemployment is at 53% in Spain

And its well been known that young people in Spain have no money. When we were young and childless we were ignored in the shops, but when we went with my wife's parents the shop assistants were jumping all over us.

If you look around on a Sunday you will see that people are out eating with their extended family, and there will be at least someone amongst them who will be able to pay for it (usually the oldest male), strength in numbers!

Originally Posted by cricketman

I wouldnt agree

Marbella is first and foremost a Spanish city that happens to have a lot of tourists visit it. Despite being bankrupt, it is fairly clean and well kept, has a nice old town and a beautiful long seafront where you can walk the 7km between Marbella and Puerto Banus. Marbella is actually more Spanish that a lot of the CDS too, although there are plenty of international restaurants as well as Spanish ones.

There are many more interesting cities in Spain and better beaches, but Marbella is way nicer than the rest of the CDS which is fairly grotty.

As a family, you can visit Ronda and Malaga city which are both great, Fuengirola zoo (or bioparc as they now call it) is small but very nice.

I have no idea what a "family friendly" restaurant is, all restaurants in Spain are family friendly, that's what they are there for!