Andalucía – Nerja

While there are many amazing cities, sites and histories to take in throughout the region of Andalucía, there is also the Costa del Sol (Coast of the Sun), which is one of Spain’s greatest tourist destinations. Many towns line the roughly 93 miles / 150 km of coastline, and we decided to spend six weeks in Nerja, one of the eastern most locales. 

Nerja has a population around 21,000 people, and one of the reasons we chose this town to live in for winter was because it has a very large expat community (about 25% of the population). You will find many people from the UK, Ireland and Scandinavia here. Due to this large expat community and the fact that Nerja is a popular tourist destination all year round, English is widely spoken. We still enjoyed practicing our Spanish and did our best to live like locals. Conor joined a gym, I enjoyed regular long walks along the coast, we worked, we cooked, etc. We also enjoyed the mild winter weather – another great reason we chose this locale. Like any tourist town, Nerja has a plethora of restaurants, shops, and most importantly, beaches – miles of lovely beaches with beautiful clear water. 

Undeniably, Nerja’s most well-known feature is its famous Balcón de Europa (the Balcony of Europe). What was once the location of a defense fortress is now a picturesque terrace that provides amazing views out to sea. They say that from this “balcony” you can see all the way to Africa. I don’t think that’s actually true, but the views are stunning nonetheless.

Aside from the views, Nerja is a lovely town itself, nestled between mountains and sea. It was festive for Christmastime and New Years, has some of those amazing stone walkways, and is adorned in beautiful flowers everywhere. You can smell the fresh leather when you pass certain shops, and you can enjoy a cafe con leche or aperitif while watching families, retirees, and everyone in between stroll by. 

As we do, we like to host guests, and winter was no exception. First, we enjoyed the company of Conor’s mum, Brenda. She joined us for two relaxing weeks, and we think she skipped out on some pretty nasty weather in Ireland during that time. We enjoyed meals, strolls, and even daily dips in the sea. Well, she and Conor did the daily toe dips. I stuck my feet in once and found the water way too frigid! I’ll admit to being a wimp. Kudos to Brenda, she worked up to a full body dip by the end! I was incredibly impressed. While Brenda was with us, we enjoyed a visit one day from our sister-in-law, Niki, and her daughter, Sofia. They live to the west and drove over for the day, which we hugely appreciated. (We will see them yet again!) Finally, we also had great fun with some Dutch friends we met in Licata last winter, Belinda and Andre. They happen to be wintering on their boat in Cartagena, which is about a four-hour drive further east along the coast. They were touring around Andalucía and stopped off in Nerja to stay with us for a night. Very fun to meet up with new friends in new places! (In case you’re wondering, we had a centrally located AirBnB that could house us and said guests.)

Now Nerja is not really known for sightseeing, but it does have one really interesting place worth visiting – the stunning Cueva de Nerja (Caves of Nerja). Discovered in 1959, this set of caverns stretches for about 3 miles / 5 km, but only only about a third of it is safely open to visitors. Even so, the enormity of what you can see is mind boggling. Archeologists have determined that humans frequently lived here for over 41,000 years. There are hundreds of cave paintings (which unfortunately you can’t really get to) and really impressive geological formations (stalactites, stalagmites, columns, gours and spirals). Sadly, you can’t really grasp the scale of it all through my photos. 

Overall, we really loved our time in Nerja. It is a wonderful place to just “be.” While we understand it is really packed in the summertime, the winter was perfect. We found some great restaurants to recommend (oddly, our favorites were not Spanish!) – Paparazzi, Pinocchio, La Bottega, Som Som Thai and El Pórtico (popular for tapas, but the Bulgarian dish – chicken sach – was amazing!). The only thing is that we did feel about fifteen years too young to be expats living there. 😉 Did I mention the beaches??