Wintering in Spain - Cadiz ?

mtk said:
Thanks for your insights very useful!!
re your Irish property
no one looking in on it ?
What about heat ? Water turned off ?
Insurance ?
Post ?
Main issue IMHO
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Over the years I spent several "winters" in the south of Spain. We had sun every day. From mid December to mid February the nights are cold. The local transport services are good and much cheaper than those in Ireland. October - mid December sees hot temps nearly every day. March, April, May are warm too. Supermarkets are cheaper; food is fresher, drink is cheaper, internet is better, life is slower and (unlike us Irish)the Andalucian Spaniards have no need for Sunday supermarkets or for rushing here or there either. Eating out is cheap too where you can have an excellent 3 course meal with wine for around a tenner. You can rent a good two bedroom apartment in a good location in a decent low-rise resort for around €550 per month. You pay for electricity, but the other utilities usually are paid by the landlord.

But, then there are the "I know ye do it, but what about the . . ." brigade. You can have somebody check your Irish property, An Post will hold your post, You can turn off your electricity and water (it might take you all of two minutes, what effort!!). And the old chestnut, the Insurance. Are Irish Insurance Companies now trying to dictate where we spend our spare time? If you want to financially gain you can rent out your Irish property while you are abroad.

If you are retired or have the spare time:- Dream up the excuses. Love your dreadful sliced bread. Love your walks in the cold. Run to Lidl on Sundays. But, I'm in the south of Spain reading on a sunny terrace, drinking Barry's tea, looking out on the glistening Mediterranean with mountain views at my back. There are very few people around. I couldn't care less about my post (it's not like Hillary Clinton is writing to me !!). My daughters check on the house and will be on Skype if anything needs attention. If I need to return to Ireland for whatever reason, it is only a short flight distant.

See you all in a few weeks tanned, fatter and more enlightened.

Regards
Lep
 
For anyone really concerned. You can also put holiday home insurance on your house if you are going to be away for an extended period.

Its bitterly cold here in Ireland this morning. Leper, you living the dream, soak it up man. ;):).
 
Leper I would love to do what you are doing. What part of Spain do you normally spend winter in. Would it be in the Malaga area?
 
We're back. Five weeks of doing as little as possible, just walking, thinking, talking, reading, eating out (@ €6.50 for a main dinner course, €3.00 or lower for the pint of beer), improving our Spanish. We didn't have RTE in the apartment so we're probably "Lord Haw-Haw'ed by the BBC/ITV" - missed out on info re Garda Pay, Teachers industrial action and the ice, frost and cold. Heading into December our tans look like something you'd see in Hollywood. First shower and our tans will start to flow down the waste pipe.

The house is still standing, no broken pipes, grass didn't even grow. Our daughter used the car. I just hope she didn't amass too many speeding penalty points as she did in previous years. "Ah Dad! - you can afford the points, I can't" - She does pay the fine though, thoughtful girl.

Now for the bacon and cabbage . . . (which I did miss).
 
Deiseblue. Did you end up in Cadiz? Looking at Rick Stein in Cadiz recently it looked great. Would you stay in the old town or along by the beach area?
 
Laramie , yes I went to Cadiz and stayed in an apartment on Calle Sagasta - a street that runs from the old town right down to the sea .
The beaches are a bit of a walk from the centre & are very nice but the surrounding buildings are pretty uniform but the chinguiritos which are beach bars & restaurants are excellent for seafood.
I would however suggest staying in the old town near to the best restaurants & bars & the old narrow streets are a delight , I went to the old bar with the pictures of old toreadors & the ultrmarinos restaurant which featured on Rick Steins show , not only were they excellent but they were really cheap.

There is a ferry to Puerto de Santa Maria which takes 30 minutes - nice town with plenty of sherry bodegas to visit.

I would return like a shot .

As an aside there were large posters of Jim Larkin all over town to advertise an Irish photography exhibition - I thought they put them up for me
 
Leper and Deiseblue all the detail is excellent. Great to read how you get on abroad and particulary the weather, the price of food etc.

Leper did you come back now for Christmas and then head out again? Did you find five weeks long? Or just right etc.
 
Five weeks was not too long. Mrs Lep was with me. My Spanish is fairly good, but Mrs Lep couldn't wait to inflict her own brand of Spanish on the Andalucians. Within a week she was correcting their Spanish (Andalucians usually don't pronounce last consonant of the spoken word).

Unlike Déise, I have little interest in any kind of soccer. My day was spent doing lesser things like walking long distances in shorts and teeshirt. A typical day would see us in some restaurant circa 9.09am, each having a coffee. Free nuts, two pastries, glass of orange juice, glass of water. Total cost of breakfast €1.30 each (tip included). Then off across cliffs for an energetic walk (Mrs Lep invaded the shopping centre, like it was going to immediately run out of shoes). There was the choice of a long promenade walk too or a short bus trip to the "old town" to experience the narrow cobbled streets. The flowers on display there were magnificent not only in colour but in smell too. Mrs Lep and I usually returned circa 2.00pm to the terrace of the apartment (sea/mountain views) for a bottle of tinto (red wine) bought for €3.50 (you can buy wine from 0.50c per bottle, but you get what you pay for). There were many retired Brits in the resort. It would not be unusual to visit another couple to share the bottle. It usually was understood that the visit did not exceed 75 minutes. It was the same when they visited us. When in Spain . . . have a siesta when possible. The shops (including supermarkets) remained closed for siesta every day (2.00pm - 5.00pm). Some of the restaurants stayed open during siesta and for €3.50 you could have a pint of beer and have free tapas supplied (kind of potato salad with red pepper in a small bowl plus a small pastry and a small doughnut and the usual nuts too).

Some of the restaurants had a free take-a-book policy if you donated your read book. I'd have a swim in the Med most evenings. The temps were in the twenties, but the local Spaniards tended to wear coats and probably thought we were "loco." I did miss having the car, but the local bus service was good and for €1.20 you could visit the nearby villages and their markets.

I'm a talker and most days we would meet somebody interesting. One such person left Cork for Dagenham (Ford factory) in the 1960's and talked profusely about the life of the Irish in Dagenham even today. There was a sprinkling of Irish people in the resort too just spending November/December chilling out. We had BBC/ITV programmes, but no RTE. Eggheads and Strictly Come Dancing were conversation starters if you decided to visit a pub later. Strangely there were more Irish in the Rose and Crown (an English type pub) than in the Irish Rover.

You would get fed up with eating out all the time. But you would spend lots of time on your terrace reading and listening to music and perhaps looking in occasionally on AAM. Time flew while there. The Spanish pace of life is much slower than ours so don't have a seizure if you're standing in a supermarket queue while the check-out operator is conversing on her mobile. Mrs Lep swears by the half the Irish price visits to the hairdresser and the healing hands of the local beautician, both exhausted from Mrs Lep's Spanish. Dentist charges are half ours also.

We hope to do the same next year and for at least five weeks.
 
Leper: Great account and ad for long term living in south of Spain for winter months. Your earlier estimate was for €550 rent plus €100 utilities. Was that near enough? Care to share approximate area you were in? Any rain, wind, storms or cold weather? Cheers!
 
Hi Slim, There were only two of us so the deal was €550 for four weeks accommodation. We stayed five weeks so €650 total was agreed plus €120 for five weeks electricity. If any member of our family joined us the charge would have been dearer.

The other utilities e.g. water, refuse, public lighting were picked up by the owner. All money dealings were agreed months previously and on a virtual handshake basis.

We had no cold weather although we had a storm one day with some rain over two days, but every day we had sunshine.
 
Great posts. I've been to Spain twice this year. Amazing his little breakfast costs. Fresh orange juice, the bread fried into that's with olive oil and tomatoes, sitting outside. I reckon you can eat out for nothing if you just have a drink with which each place gives you loads of food in their different versions of tapas. And delicious too.

Also my enter heating bill is horrendous, so you might pay rent but you save on heat. Never mind health.
 
Leper said:
Hi Slim, There were only two of us so the deal was €550 for four weeks accommodation. We stayed five weeks so €650 total was agreed plus €120 for five weeks electricity. If any member of our family joined us the charge would have been dearer.

The other utilities e.g. water, refuse, public lighting were picked up by the owner. All money dealings were agreed months previously and on a virtual handshake basis.

We had no cold weather although we had a storm one day with some rain over two days, but every day we had sunshine.
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Cheers! Sounds great!
 
Leper said:
A typical day would see us in some restaurant circa 9.09am, each having a coffee. Free nuts, two pastries, glass of orange juice, glass of water. Total cost of breakfast €1.30 each (tip included).
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This seems unbelievably cheap?

2 coffees + 2 pastries + glass of orange juice for 2.60?
 
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Protocol said:
This seems unbelievably cheap?

2 coffees + 2 pastries + glass of orange juice for 2.60?
Click to expand...

Don't forget the bowl of nuts to share and a glass of water each. You can even get it cheaper if you know where to go.
 
Leper how did you feel about the cold since you came back, and the dark winter. Does the fact it's Christmas help?
 
Bronte said:
Leper how did you feel about the cold since you came back, and the dark winter. Does the fact it's Christmas help?
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We're back only since Sunday and missed out on the ice and frost here in the previous 10 days. This is not the first time we spent some off season weeks in Spain. Last time I retired (my 3rd retirement next year will be my final one, I promise) we spent 3 months in Spain. Christmas is sacrosanct for us and I don't even see a time when we will spend Christmas anywhere other than at home. The rest of autumn, winter, spring are good times to be in sunnier climes and I don't envisage ever being in Ireland for January/February/March and more from 2018.

Several of our friends cannot cotton on to the advantages of spending several weeks in southern Spain. Perhaps, it is a bacon and cabbage issue? I don't see myself selling up here either. In the off season you don't tend to meet that many Irish people there. But, one thing is certain, the Brits know how to enjoy their retirement. (I think we met every UK retiree while we were in Spain). I don't think Brexit will interfere with the amount of Brits seeking inexpensive, long term winter sun.

Being back in Ireland, I still have not had the desire to open post and settling into work is an issue too. We ate out in a nearby hotel last night and after Spanish prices felt we had been robbed bareback (wrong euphonism, I know!).
 
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