I am mentally in a tizzy because I cannot come completely to peace about our house choice!  We have been looking for a 4+ bedroom place with a private pool that is within walking distance of town and school.  We are currently staying in one, and we could rent it’s twin next door long-term (this particular house is already rented out for the upcoming September), but we would like just a little more space if we can find it.  So after considering several other options, we have two homes in the running: this one, in Cotobro, a neighborhood of Almuñécar, or what we call “the big house” in La Herradura, the small town next door.

Cotobro – The Smaller House

  Pros

The house we are in is beautiful and modern, and it has pretty much everything we need, including a baby bed and high chair, rooftop parking with auto-opening gate, gorgeous view, and king sized beds in each bedroom.  It has a very small private pool, the care of which is included in the rent. It even has a clothes dryer, which is not very common here, a poolside bathroom, and an elevator.  I love it!  We can run (literally, hoofing it fast) down to the beach in 5 minutes (or walk in 10), and the walk to school would be about 20-25 minutes.  We can also walk to the center of Almunecar for church, banking needs, shopping, etc. in 30-40 minutes.  I have already developed a strong fondness for the town, the paseos along the beaches, the great grocery store, and the view of the point with the cross on top.  The long-term rental price is significantly less than our mortgage in Virginia, which leaves extra money in the budget for easy travel plans.

Cons

The only thing this house is lacking is an office for Ryan to work in (or a seconding living area for Cora and I to be in during the day), and green space.  It has 2 terraces and a balcony, so there is some room for the kids to run around outside, but no grass, no flowers, no trees, and if they fly the paper airplane too high, it goes over the wall into the neighbor’s terrace. Who knows what would happen with a soccer ball.  The microwave in the kitchen is behind the kitchen door, which is a little tricky – if we stay here we would probably take that door off it’s hinges and store it away somewhere so we can get to the pantry and microwave without closing the door.  Visitors would have to sleep in Cora’s room and then we’d have to move her somewhere we could squeeze in her travel crib, and they’d have to share the hall bathroom on the bedroom level with the entire family or go downstairs to use the other one.  But the biggest issue is feeling like we’re a bit on top of each other, and that Ryan’s work place would either be on the pool patio in the shade, in the only living area in the house, or in our bedroom (and there is not really space for a desk).  If Ryan can’t work effectively, this whole Spain thing won’t work for us long-term, so this is important!  Of course, all of the kids are home all day right now, and soon, 4 of them will be in school from 9 – 2.  Maybe that would make all the difference?

The Big House – La Herradura

We discovered the big house by looking at homes that are for sale and asking if they’d be willing to rent. Turns out, this house is owned by a man from the Netherlands, and he’s had it on the market for a year already, so he’s willing.  The house is in the next town to the west of Almuñécar, called La Herradura, and is less than a 10 minute drive from where we are now.  I have read conflicting information about the exact size, but at least one source said the population of La Herradura is about 3,000 compared to Almuñécar’s 30,000.

Pros

The house is absolutely stunning.  The views are breathtaking – mountains, sea, trees and flowers.  There is a much larger pool with steps to enter it that would be great for me and Cora, several grassy areas, several great poolside seating options, a hammock, a lemon tree, a banana tree, gorgeous flowers blooming over the terrace railing that are automatically watered by an irrigation system, and an overall outdoor presentation that is the perfect relaxing oasis.  We saw it last Friday night right before sunset, and as we watched the sun set behind the mountains, my heart wanted to live there at any cost, despite anything my brain might say.  It is in a gated community and the road has a cul-de-sac, so there is a flat area where the kids could roller skate or bike a bit (if we had those things).  The roads to get there are generally less anxiety-inducing than the steep, narrow switch-backs in Cotobro, and there is even a lane on the side marked off for walkers and bikers. The house also has 4 bedrooms, but they are much larger, and they all have their own bathroom.  All of the bedrooms upstairs open onto a large upper terrace.  One of the bedrooms has room for a futon in addition to the bed, and it has an en-suite bathroom that makes it the perfect place for visitors.  The house is new, well-maintained, and feels luxurious, with things like heated towel bars, a wood-burning fireplace, stainless steel appliances and marble floors.  Most importantly, it has an office, two living areas (one could be the “kid zone”), a larger kitchen, and of course, the green space.  Real grass, as springy as a trampoline!  It would definitely be easier to be home with Cora all day in the this house – more places to play, more ways to change the scenery, less worry about our noise bugging others, and less likely to be a frustration to Ryan while he’s trying to work. Another benefit is that for now, the owner is leaving his kayak and wind surfing board in the garage, and has given us permission to use them.  Cool stuff!  Working directly with the owner will save us some real estate commissions, which is a nice benefit, and he’s willing to leave the utilities in his name and just let us know what we owe for them when the bills come, which seems simpler than the alternative.

From the big house, you can walk on a somewhat scrabbly path down to the beach in about 10-15 minutes, and you can walk to the school in La Herradura in 20-25.  Or you can take the road and the walks are about 10 minutes longer (unless we can find a few more staircases that cut off some of the turns).  I visited the school before we saw the house, and liked it quite a bit.  I was encouraged that they also have a Spanish tutor to help my kids learn the language just like the school in Almuñécar, and the classes are small (about 16-17 kids each).  They have students from 27 different countries there.  There is a huge gated playground very nearby the school where I could play with Cora for a bit after dropping the kids off, and there is a soccer field right on the beach (a paved, enclosed soccer area) where I assume the kids would often play after school.  The town is small, has fewer options for shopping, and only one beach, but does have a branch of our local bank, some restaurants, and some small supermarkets.  The people are all very friendly, and I ran into people on Saturday that I met on Friday who recognized me and greeted me in the street!

Cons

The rent for this house costs as much as our home in Virginia, which means we’ll have to budget more carefully to achieve our travel goals.  I have run some numbers, and I think we can still do it, but it will take more cost-conscious planning than living in the other place would.  Thankfully, other expenses will be lower for us than they are in the states, including food, cell phones, and car costs (we’ll only get one, and won’t have any commute). Aside from the cost, a few other little things would be less convenient living at the big house: the garage is below the property, down the hill really, and only has a manual door, and is accessible only via outside stairways to get up to the house. That means going anywhere in the car with the kids will be a bit of a pain – we’ll have to get everybody down two outdoor staircases, and there will be no more simply saying “kids, go get in the car, I’ll be right there.”  There is no clothes dryer, and if we installed one, it could not fit in the laundry room.  We’d have to put it in the boiler room off the kitchen (which still would be better than hanging all the laundry for 7 people to dry!).  Also, the house is mostly furnished, but not fully equipped – meaning we’ll need to buy a few pieces of furniture (master bedroom bed, desk and chair for office), pots and pans for the kitchen, and probably some other miscellaneous items like towels and linens (though he does have some there we can use), and cleaning tools.  He did offer to help with the missing furniture, but since we don’t have a contract yet, I’m not sure if that means he’ll buy it for us, or give us some money towards the purchase.  So there are some start-up expenses (but also the fun of picking things out).

The other significant con about the big house is that the town we can walk to is really a tiny town, more like a suburb.  Though I hear the community has all the kid activities we would want, and we could walk to meet our basic shopping and dining out needs, we would need to drive to Almuñécar for the big grocery store, and also to church.  This is a somewhat difficult item to evaluate – an intangible unknown about what life might be like.  Would we feel like town is a little too tranquilo? I love being close to town in Almuñécar where we are now, and I worry that we might feel a little isolated in La Herradura, but it could be that I’m just more familiar with Almuñécar.  Perhaps once we got to know La Herradura, I would have the same fondness for it, and be glad for what it offers?  Another concern is that the area has more expats, so we may be less likely to make Spanish friends in that neighborhood/side of town.  I love the idea of having some english-speaking friends, but our main goal here is to be speaking Spanish.  The kids will be speaking Spanish in school, and making friends there, and hopefully we can make friends with the parents. Could we invite people over, and would they come? I do not think that neighborhood has many (or any?) kids in it that we’d just run into on the street, so we may have to work for friendships in a different way. And finally, because this is a more upscale neighborhood, I worry a little about being like an “elite” member of the community, which might make it more difficult to make friends, as well.

So those are our two options.  Which would you choose?  We will decide soon, because we need a rental contract before we can go get our residence cards, and that must be done within 30 days of our arrival!  Let me know what you think!

  We slept so late that we didn’t have much time to meander along the Costa del Sol like we’d hoped before we met up with the Wagoners, an American family who moved to Spain 3 years ago.  We took a quick drive through Fuengirola, and found it to be quite a busy little city, with nothing particularly appealing in the few streets we chanced to navigate.  I know there is a church there that looks to be a good one, so we may want to go back and investigate further.

From there, we meant to take the coastal road, but missed our turn and ended up on the highway a little inland, so we took the next exit and drove through Benalmádena.  Wow, there are some WINDY, steep roads all along there!  We saw some really pretty villas, and the view is gorgeous.  It seemed less congested than Fuengirola – and it’s a good thing not many cars travel those roads!  But again, we really didn’t have time to stop and look around, so back to the highway we went (via more amazingly steep, crazy little roads!).  What would we have done without Google Maps?!?

As we drove east past Málaga, the scenery started to change.  There is a little more land between towns, more vineyards and farms (with plastic greenhouses stretched right over the plants!), and still the cute little classic white Andalucian towns. 

 When we took the exit for Almuñécar, I could immediately see why someone would like it here.  It’s beautiful!  There is a little cove and a point jutting out with an old castle on top, and the houses, like in Mijas and Benalmádena, are cut into the mountainside in a terraced fashion.  But there seems to be a lot less “city” between the mountain and the sea.  It is very peaceful.  El centro, the main “city” part of town, isn’t really very big and is definitely walkable.  The Wagoners, who we got to meet for lunch, are now living here with no car, and their kids walk to school.  This really appeals to me!   

 They have a view of the Mediterranean Sea from their apartment.  They can walk to the beach, and the water is clear and inviting (but cold right now!)  We walked by the area of town where the villas are – that’s the houses like we would prefer, with 4 or 5 bedrooms.  It would be a totally different lifestyle for us, walking or driving up and down a steep hill to house on the mountainside, but yet… I can imagine it.  We didn’t get to see any of the insides of the villas, because it’s really too early to be doing that level of research.  On the whole, it seems like a very peaceful town.  The people are friendly in the restaurants and hotels, although we noticed that most people don’t say hello when they pass each other in the streets here.  I’ll have to ask if that is a cultural thing?

We are staying at a nice hotel a block from the beach that only cost us 35 euros.  There is a really pretty garden out back with delicious smelling flowers.   

 The mountains are gorgeous and the sunset over the beach was fantastic.  We walked in the center of town at night after everything was closed (too bad), and stumbled upon the ruins of a roman aqueduct dating back to the first century AD!   

 Tomorrow we want to go check out the castle, maybe go ask some questions at the local public school, check out the parque de naturaleza, and then we meet with the wife of one of the deacons at a church here to get a feel for what it is like.  Then we go to check out another town!