After an all too brief return to Kalkan for 6 weeks or so in March and early April, we returned to Spain on 10th April 2017.

We didn’t really want to leave Turkey. The tourism industry in the country was on its arse due to terrorist activities elsewhere but Kalkan is a small village a world away from all that stuff and we love it more and more every time we return.

However, we thought that Valencia was quite special. We stayed in a lovely spacious apartment in a typical old building in a perfect location in the Historical Centre. The building is in a street full of identical buildings some of which have been redeveloped and some of which haven’t. There is plenty of graffiti around but strangely the street art seemed to add to the charm  of the place. “Our” building  was unremarkable from the street. Neither the outside nor the inside communal areas had been tarted up and there was no lift – something that by now we seek out when booking accommodation in old multi-storied buildings. However, the apartment itself had been beautifully restored and furnished by the owners who initially lived in it themselves but now live in another apartment across the street. The flat was very well kitted out and with super hospitable owners, its highly likely we will return one day.

Son Richard and girl friend Laura joined us for a few days and loved Valencia from the moment they arrived.

Valencia has everything we needed and liked. Grand boulevards  and squares with some serious period architecture alongside a historic centre with typically narrow streets lined with boutiques, bars, restaurants and clubs with lots of interesting little squares here and there .

There is no shortage of museums and other places of interest with a nice cathedral and the stunning Church of San Nicolas. In truth by now, after quite a long period in Spain, we were already becoming picky about which museums, cathedrals and churches we would visit but the Church of San Nicolas is very special and definitely a must see and the Cathedral and Basilica are also worth a visit.

Valencia Cathedral

The cathedral dates back to the 13th century and is a mix of styles. It contains, amongst other things, a chalice which is claimed to be The Holy Grail.

 

 

The Basilica

The Basilica built in the Baroque style is rather plain from the outside but  lavishly decorated inside with an impressive frescoed dome.

 

Church of San Nicolas – El Carmen district

This is an incredible place to visit although it appears nothing from the outside with access being down a small alleyway – its easy to miss it even when you are searching it out. Founded in the 13th century with later additions, as always, this is a mix of Gothic, Baroque and Rococco styles. There are newly restored areas and the plasterwork and especially the painted ceiling is truly amazing – and apparently larger than the Sistine Chapel.

 

The shopping here is so good that even I enjoyed it. There are independent shops, high end and not so high end, a bakery on every corner and a great central market for fresh food shopping. Add to that our favourite department store, El Corte Inglese with  great shopping for clothes and an excellent  food hall and we needed no more.

Central Mercado

Mercado de Colon

This  market, quite some distance from the old City is contained in a market building built in the early 1900s but recently restored. It’s a lovely building with attractive brickwork and lots of structural metal and glass. This was a market proper in the day but now comprises a collection of cafes and restaurants with  various retailers and florists. The only purveyors of fresh produce that we spotted were a rather fancy fishmonger and a similarly expensive looking charcuterie.

 

National Museum of Ceramics

We are not great visitors of museums except for those said to be exceptional of their type. This wasn’t one such but we were intrigued by the amazing building itself which is covered in alabaster carvings. As luck would have it, admission was free on the day we were passing and thankfully so as the exhibits themselves were rather underwhelming.

Gardens of Turia

As ever we did a lot of walking in Valencia which is a very green city with parks and green spaces everywhere. We didn’t get to see them all by any means but we did see and walk the length and breadth of the Gardens of Turia, a 9 kilometre ribbon of greenery created from the dried up bed of a river that was diverted  following major flooding in 1957. The gardens snake their way through the city toward the sea providing  a corridor of  open recreational space for  the people of Valencia. There are numerous playgrounds and sports areas, fountains and well-trimmed arty gardens. The river bed is always full of people as there is something for everyone, with sports pitches, pathways, cycle tracks, roller skating, skate -boarding etc and zillions of places to sit and people watch and/or enjoy a picnic. There’s also an Oceanarium – the largest aquarium in Europe, not to mention the Bioparc – aka a zoo !

 

 

The Turia Gardens are also a major cultural centre for  Valencia housing the Palau de la Musica (concert hall) and the City of Arts and Sciences which sits right in the river bed. Lots to see and apparently there is almost always some kind of fair or festival taking place here for added interest. The City of Arts and Sciences comprises some beautiful modern buildings as you can see.

 

We stayed in Valencia for a week but left with still a lot to see. A good excuse to return sometime when the opportunity arises. We liked the city a lot and it’s definitely a place where we would consider settling down if and when we grow up .

A few more random snaps

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Following 3 months in Turkey from August to November 2016, we needed somewhere to over winter. We planned to return to the UK for the Christmas and New Year period and stay with our kids but we had no home to go to as such as our house in Bolton is still rented out and will likely continue to be for another year at least.

An ideal solution, for me at least, would have been a return to Asia for a few months of sun and cheap living but we did want to be home for Christmas and so we decided upon Spain as a  more practical and affordable solution. We had several time-share weeks that needed to be used
(before they expired) and we worked it so that over the period December to March with almost 3 weeks at home over Christmas, a combination of time-share and rental properties enabled us to spend a very pleasant winter in Spain. Better still, because of the proximity to the UK and Ireland, various friends and family came over to  join us at various times.

Actually our period on the Costa Del Sol was an eye opener for us. We had never really visited the area before except for an occasional holiday in Marbella and Puerto Banus when our kids were small. We certainly didn’t expect to enjoy our stay so much on a coast commonly regarded as a downmarket coastal strip of concrete full of Brit friendly pubs and fish and chips cafes in the Blackpool genre.

Whilst we found that there is certainly no shortage of the aforesaid British pubs and cafes in some of the resorts, most of these are closed over the winter despite the fact there is still a fair number of resident Brit expats and visitors around. And occasionally those pubs were handy to visit on occasion to watch live footy on TV when we were struggling with poor wifi at our accomodation.

Over the 3 month period December to March we spent a month in Nerja, a week or two or more in Calahonda, Belamadena, La Cala and Malaga and we also visited Marbella and Seville for a few days and we enjoyed them all. We were pleasantly surprised to find some good walking, albeit mostly urban walking but with lengthy boardwalks and promenades. For example, we could walk from Cala to Torremelinos in one direction and to Fuengerola in the other direction, a distance of around 20km and most days we would walk from 5 to 10 miles or more.

Everywhere , without exception , we could find inexpensive tapas restaurants in areas where we heard relatively few British voices and the  efficient and cheap train and bus services meant that we could have regular days out at little cost.

Malaga became a favourite and we visited several times and stayed over on occasion including a pre-Christmas get together with brother Mike and sister-in-law Lynn. We loved the architecture, the bars and restaurants and the atmosphere , especially at Christmas was lovely.

Here’s a few photos from our time on the Costa Del Sol

Benalmadena

 

 

 

 

Benalmadena Pueblo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Playa de Calahonda/La Cala

This stretch of cost is between Fuengirola and Marbella. We liked it a lot staying in the timeshare resorts of Macdonalds Dona Lola and Los Mimosas

 

 

 

 

Marbella – a day out from Calahonda

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Malaga

We visited Malaga a few times twixt December and March 2017  and the city has become one of our favourites. A pre Christmas visit when we met up with my brother Mike and sister-in-law Lynn was especially nice but we find the place great whenever we visit. Its a decent size city with a nice historic centre packed with tapas bars and restaurants. There’s some very good shopping with a trip to our favourite store El Corte Ingles compulsory on every visit!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nerja

Nerja seems to be the “go to” resort for many holiday makers visiting Spain including several of our friends who visit regularly. We had never visited and so we decided to round off this trip with a months stay in an apartment just above Burriana Beach. The apartment was in a very good spot only minutes from the beach and its bars and restaurants and a similar distance from decent supermarkets. Nerja centre was 10/15 minutes walk.

We chose our apartment well, very spacious and well kitted out for self catering. Wifi was good and Sky Sports for live footy was a bonus.

We enjoyed mostly decent sunny weather except for a few stormy days but February  is out of season and  many of the bars and restaurants were still closed. Nevertheless we found sufficient eateries to keep us happy  and were lucky to visit at the time of the annual February Carnival, an excuse for the locals to dress up and have a big drink! We were surprised to find many more expat Brits, French and Americans (and beggars) here than we had  in the other parts of Costa Del Sol although its certainly more authentically Spanish with much fewer ex-pat bars and cafes further down the coast. It’s certainly true to say that this is a very attractive town with nice beaches with some nice walking with one of the very pretty white villages, Frigiliana, only 6 kilometers away. The Balcon de Europa area of the town centre shown in the first few photos below is especially nice and a great place to sit and people watch in the February sun albeit this particular area was plagued with beggars at the time of our visit.

We enjoyed our stay in Nerja although we didn’t feel the love sufficiently to want to return in a hurry.

 

The Town

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Beaches

Really nice beaches here – especially off season – and perhaps more especially in wild weather !

 

 

 

 

 

 

Carnival

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Weekend in Seville

One of the great things about staying on the Costa del Sol is the easy access to Malaga with its great transport links to the rest of the country. You can seemingly get anywhere by bus, train or plane and we took the opportunity to make a short trip by train to Seville. Sorting out train tickets was a doddle and we booked a decent hotel in the city centre, Las Casa de Los Mercaderes. The journey itself was very pleasant with comfortable seats and we got to see  some lovely scenery we would never have seen had we travelled by car. We stayed only for 2 nights/3 days and unfortunately Ann wasn’t very well on one of the days . So time was very limited but  we saw enough of the place , including a few hours in the Cathedral and Alcazar , to decide that we would return and rent an apartment for a much longer stint in 2018. Here are some photos….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seville

 

 

 

 

 

 

Madrid

Following our time on the Costa Del Sol we ended up with a couple of days in Malaga where we met up with friends Brian and Carl and then flew to Madrid for a couple of nights before our flight back to Turkey.

Madrid was very much a flying visit and the weather was grey and drizzly  but nevertheless we enjoyed our couple of days which included a visit to the Bernabeu Stadium to watch Real Madrid v Las Palmas which ended up 3-3 with Bale sent 0ff – a great night out.  We also walked a lot and got to visit the Royal Palace and  other attractions and found some excellent tapas bars close to our digs. A culinary highlight , whilst not  fine dining , was the Mercado de San Miguel, a covered market full of top quality tapas bars selling all kinds of tapas and drinks.Very lively at any time ( we went more than once in 2 days)  and a great place to wander around grazing and trying different things.Here are some snaps….