About 18 months ago Lars and I left Belgium and moved to Spain. Both of us had dreamed of living in the south of Europe for a long time. And since neither of us is getting any younger and since I felt that on a professional level I had nothing to offer to Belgium anymore, we decided that it was time to go.
For the first 6 months, we called Torrox in the Costa del Sol our home. Lars and I quickly felt at home in our small house with the enormous roof terrace, where we spent the evenings grilling meat and fish on the BBQ and watching the sun go down. Life was perfect.
As soon as Lars got a car again, we started exploring the beautiful region where we lived, which is the province of Malaga. We could spend hours driving on the N-340, the coastal road connecting the towns and cities that attract so many tourists every year. One of these is Nerja, situated 50 kilometres to the east of Malaga.
In the beginning, though, we never stopped at Nerja. We blatantly misjudged it as another coastal town that had nothing special to offer and kept on passing it in favour of smaller places at the sea. It was only when we had moved to Churriana de la Vega (near Granada) and accidentally became stranded in Nerja (of all places!) that we took time to explore this town.
More than 20.000 people call Nerja their home, a third of which are ex-pats. You can hardly blame them… Sure, there are some high-rise buildings, but Nerja has been able to keep most of its charm. And the centre of the old town is right next to the sea. If you don’t have much time, make sure to explore those narrow streets and eat some tapas.
Moreover, follow the locals and the tourists and end up at the magnificent Balcon de Europa, a viewpoint located on a high cliff…
I took these pictures in the first half of April when it was about 23 degrees. You could easily distinguish the tourists from the locals, even when you could not hear them talking. Tourists were clad in T-shirts whereas the local population were still wearing winter clothes…
If you want to see more pictures of Nerja, check out our Instagram feed!
Travel Memories 