Michelle Obama, daughter to tour Spain

WASHINGTON/MADRID - US First Lady Michelle Obama and one of her two daughters will take a summer break in Spain next week, the White House said Monday.

The first lady will pay an official visit to Spanish King Juan Carlos and Queen Sophia. But the vacation was otherwise a “private, mother-daughter trip with longtime family friends”, the White House said in a statement.

Spanish media reports said Michelle Obama and her younger daughter Sasha, 9, would be in the southern holiday resort of Marbella on Spain’s Costa del Sol between August 4 and 8.

There had been speculation that President Barack Obama might also come to Spain to celebrate his 49th birthday on August 4. The White House said the president would not accompany his wife.

Michelle Obama has reserved about 30 rooms for herself and her daughter, their friends and bodyguards at a five-star hotel in Benahavis near Marbella, hotel sources said.

The US first lady did not make any special requests, hotel owner Ricardo Arranz said, explaining that the hotel would function normally during her stay.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero’s government had been disappointed in its hopes of hosting Barack Obama when the US president cancelled his participation in a European Union-US summit that had been scheduled during the Spanish EU presidency in the first half of 2010. The summit was subsequently called off.