Our Spanish Dream - Part 7: A Little Inland

Date Created: 08.12.2014

Thinking the coast ‘concrete jungle’, where the infamous and numerous cranes dotted the sky-line telling of more building, was perhaps not for us we headed a little inland.  Not too far, after all we needed to be able to rent the property to holiday makers, and they love the beaches. 

Quickly we found open land, agricultural fields and the first of the small towns, San Miguel de las Salinas.  We moved on to Los Montesinos and then Algorfa.  The main issue was that in the towns, as with all Spanish towns, was that within our price range there were only apartments with tiny balconies and often no pool.  So we headed for an urbanisation where we could buy considerably more for our money than we could on the coast and where there would be townhouses and communal pools.

We were impressed by what we could afford and it was beautifully quiet, so we went for a walk around - but there was nothing there!  We couldn’t amble to the shop for fresh bread and milk in the morning, or go for an evening stroll to a café/bar.  Every time we wanted to do anything other than chat to a neighbour, (if you could find one), we had to get in car.

Reality hit.  This was not what we wanted.  Like it or not, at heart we are ‘townies’!  If we were to find our future home it would have to be where we could walk to the shops, and take an evening stroll not just under 'the moon of love' but under the street lights too!

We briefly stopped at a couple of urbanisations with some amenities but they all felt so false, not proper villages, just contrived and very much a case of ‘little Britain’.  So we headed back to the coast to reconsider our options.

Dave and Bev Townsend have two homes, their main one in Norwich and a second home in Playa Flamenca in south Costa Blanca, Spain which they also let as a holiday rental www.house-by-the-pool.com   They run a property finding business offering a free service for those seeking to buy a property in the Costa Blanca (Alicante) or the Mar Menor area of the Costa Calida (Murcia) www.SpanishDreamProperty.com   Bev has family in Spain and they intend to move there full-time in a couple of years.