Estepona Is One Of the Hidden Gems Of The Costa Del Sol

The town of Estepona is one of the hidden gems of the Costa del Sol in Southern Spain. It is often overlooked in favour of neighbouring Marbella and to a certain extent Fuengirola and Torremolinos, which means that it has been able to keep its ambience and “olde worlde” charm, although it does cater for foreign visitors. It has one of the prettiest old quarters in Andalusia with narrow streets of whitewashed houses covered in colourful plant pots bursting with flowers of all sorts.

Estepona faces the coast and is backed by the Sierra Bermeja mountains which are only 40 minutes away by car and offer some great hiking and cycling trails with views of North Africa and Gibraltar in the distance. Indeed, Gibraltar airport is only 40 minutes from Estepona, and Malaga airport is just an hour.

If you are a golfer, Estepona could provide your dream home because it has no fewer than six golf courses, and there are yet another five only 15 minutes’ drive away in Sotogrande. There is also a fantastic choice of restaurants in Estepona offering Italian, Mexican, Indian, and Chinese food, and of course there are plenty of excellent seafood restaurants such as La Escorella which is right at the side of the port and gets its’ fresh fish straight off the boat every day. Another outstanding seafood restaurant is El Pescador which offers some of the biggest and juiciest black mussels you have ever seen.

Another big advantage of Estepona is that it has some superb beaches, but they don’t get as crowded as others on the Costa del Sol which can become jam-packed in the summer. The main beach is Playa Rada and is backed by some great chinguitos and is only a ten-minute walk to the old town.

Furthermore, if you are looking for apartments for sale in Estepona, they are a lot cheaper that those in Marbella only 20 minutes away. They can be as much as 70% less expensive than those in Puerto Banus, and if you want to moor your boat, the marina rates are about half the others nearby.

Orihuela Would Be A Good Choice For An Overseas Investment Property

Orihuela is a city in Alicante in South Eastern Spain and lies in the flat lowland of the Vega del Segura just North East of Murcia City. It was actually a settlement before Roman times and became the Roman town of Orcelis. It was captured by the Moors in 713 and liberated by the Christians in 1264. It was sacked in disturbances in 1520 at the beginning of the reign of Charles I and then again in 1706 during the War of the Spanish Succession. It has often been flooded by the Segura river, and part of it was destroyed by an earthquake in 1829.

The Moors created a great system of irrigation and grew maize, which resulted in a proverb “Rain or no rain, corn in Orihuela”. Today the area is farmed for oranges and lemons, wheat, oats, almonds, peppers, potatoes, dates, and cotton. Orihuela is also famous for growing carnations. The town also has a traditional textile and shoe industry, and today has a population of around 80,000.

The older part of the city is on the North side of the Segura and contains some historic buildings such as the Church of Santas Justa y Rufina, dating from the 14th century, and the Church of Santiago which is a cathedral from about the same age. There is also the College of Santo Domingo dating from 1516.

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La cala de mijas is a great place for a retirement home

If you are looking for a retirement home in the sun in Spain, have you considered La Cala de Mijas? It is situated in the province of Malaga and is on the coast of the Costa del Sol and is only a 15 minute drive to Marbella and 25 minutes to Malaga, so if you enjoy a day out in the bigger cities they are not very far away. Fuengirola, which is more relaxed than the bigger cities, is only 10 minutes by car.

The weather is great as you would expect on the Spanish coast with an average of 27°C throughout the year, rising to about 31°C as a maximum. The standard of the beaches is rated as very high compared with other beaches in this part of Spain and they are looked after properly and cleaned and maintained throughout the year.

La Cala has quite a number of expats living here, so you won’t feel as if you are in a foreign country where you don’t know anyone, as you will soon get to make some new friends. Of course, another big advantage is that although you have a home in the sun, the cost of living is a lot less than in the UK so every pound goes that much further.

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Torrevieja Could Be A Good Choice For A Retirement Home

Torrevieja in Spain is around 36 kilometres from Murcia Airport and is about 30 minutes’ drive away. In the other direction it is 50 kilometres from Alicante Airport. The city is right on the coast and has over 20 kilometres of beautiful white sandy beaches with lifeguards, children’s play areas, showers, first aid posts, and toilets. The harbour area is full of restaurants many of them serving fresh fish which is straight off the fishing boats.

Torrevieja literally translates as Torre Vieja, which means the Old Tower, and used to be a tiny fishing village (like many of the towns on the Costa Blanca) but it has witnessed a huge explosion in size and population in recent times – most of which is from the huge numbers of people moving to Torrevieja from Northern Europe or buying holiday homes in the area. 

The town is surrounded by salt lakes which are a natural habitat for many birds, such as the Greater Flamingo and Montagu’s Harrier. The salt is also commercially extracted and is one of the town’s main industries.

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Sucina Is A Great Little Village In Southern Spain

Sucina in Spain is about ten kilometres from the Mediterranean and is a lovely little village of about 2,000 people. It is only about a 40 minute drive to Torrevieja where there is a weekly market every Friday. The town has over 100 bars and has some great restaurants down by the harbour where there are some superb fish restaurants which use fish straight off the fishing boats. There are plenty of shops in Torrevieja, which is a town of around 85,000 people and caters for every taste.

Back in Sucina, of the 2,000 or so people who live there, around 300 of them are British, so if you are looking for Sucina villas for sale with a view to either using one as a holiday home and renting it out for the rest of the year, or are considering one as a retirement home, and you like the peace and quiet of the countryside, then you will have plenty of company. It is not essential to speak Spanish, although it is a fairly easy language to learn and it is well worth doing. Most of the local shops can cope with English speakers, as can the cafes and bars, but the local community centre does free Spanish lessons, and the locals come there to learn English too!

There are also two golf courses very close to Sucina, so if you are a golfer you are well catered for. In addition, there are several restaurants so if you don’t feel like cooking you can dine out instead. Restaurant La Vista is open 7 days a week and does tapas from 1.00pm to 5.30 pm, and then a la carte from 7.00pm to 10.30pm and doesn’t close until midnight. There is also TexMex which is off the Square and offers Mexican food, as you might guess.

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Introduce Yourself (Example Post)

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

  • Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
  • Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

  • Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
  • What topics do you think you’ll write about?
  • Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
  • If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.