# Urban Lifestyle cities in Spain?



## dneuschulz (Oct 29, 2021)

I am an ex-New Yorker (meaning Manhattan, really), and I would like to retire to a city-center lifestyle of walking, mass transit, cafes, restaurants, museums, and other arts. I am not interested in a suburban experience. I also would ideally like to live somewhere large enough that, by the time you have explored all the neighborhoods, the first places you visited have new things.

I have been to Barcelona. It certainly fits the bill! And I am very sure Madrid would also. But what other cities are large enough to avoid small-town boredom? Alicante? Malaga? Seville?


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## tardigrade (May 23, 2021)

Forget the last three you have written and choose Valencia.


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## kalohi (May 6, 2012)

My sister lives in Manhattan and I've visited her many times. And I've lived in the Seville area for 35+ years. So I can assure you that Seville and Manhattan have nothing in common. Seville has a small city feel. It's definitely walkable because all of the places of interest are located within the same general area. There are many outstanding places to eat that could take you years to thoroughly explore and there are cafes on every corner. However, the art/architecture offerings lean very heavily towards churches and liturgical art, and if you don't like that then it's a stretch to find other things. You may find that this is true in many Spanish cities. 

Really there's no substitute for visiting these places yourself and getting a feel for the cities. If you're thinking about a move here then I would definitely recommend a tour of Spain first to help you decide where you'd like to head.


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## Roland_O (Oct 17, 2016)

tardigrade said:


> Forget the last three you have written and choose Valencia.


I agree.

I have also have lived in Manhattan and would be there still if the cost of living was not so crazy there.

European cities are nicer places to live than their US equivalents, they are more diverse, more complicated, less car focused, and generally just a bit higher quality. Spain does good cities.

Madrid and Barcelona are as good as anywhere in Europe for the standard of life. But are expensive. Property in particular would only look reasonable to a New Yorker.

I live in Valencia, and it’s lovely. Much cheaper that the two main cities, and has a more chilled vibe. For most of the year the weather is kinder as well. 6 metro lines, but people tend to walk (like manhattan), and cabs are cheap. Complicated (there are new and old bits, lots of industry, hipsters, old folk, kids, all mixed together). Like Manhattan, you will never have time to visit all the restaurants. The various districts have very different feels.

There are cons to the pros. Valencia is half the size of the bigger two, and less English is spoken. You will have to engage with Spanish eating hours. The airport is less connected. 

Hope this of some help.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Overandout (Nov 10, 2012)

I am going to disagree with the majority.

I have never lived in Manhattan, but I have vistied and I don't think that anywhere in Spain come close to that as an urban experience.
I also don't think that Madrid or Barcelona are expensive (compared to New York).
Spain only has two big cities despite what others might claim about Valencia, Sevilla, Zaragoza etc, these barely have 500,000 people and are small.
If Barcelona fitted your criteria, stop looking and dive in. 
Madrid is very different to Barcelona and is more "functional" with less emphasis on tourism and accomodating leisure activities. Madrid is however more (dare I say it?) "Spanish" or perhaps more correctly it is more Castillian.
So unless you think that the extra size of Madrid (it is twice as big as Barcelona), or the need to be more immersed in the "real" Spain is that important, I would suggest you stick with Barcelona to start with.
You can always move later of course.


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## Overandout (Nov 10, 2012)

Sorry, I have just realised that you could infer from my post above that I don't consider Barceñona to be "real" Spain. Of course that is not the case, it is simply representative of a particular part of Spain whereas Madrid is more influenced by the rest of Spanish culture in more even proportions in addition to its own regoinal identity.


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## dneuschulz (Oct 29, 2021)

Thank you, all! (It's is amusing that Valencia came up so many times, because it was the second on my list after Barcelona, but I omitted it because, like Barcelona, it has a Catalan culture, so I thought it might be redundant to mention it. But I also like the riverbed they transformed into a park. I might take up biking.) At least now, I have a list that is prioritized in terms of what to visit with limited time. BTW, I'd live in NY except for winters. The winters in the northeast (as well as the summers, but I enjoy heat) are getting more extreme. I am very fed up with winter. No more winter.


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

dneuschulz said:


> Thank you, all! (It's is amusing that Valencia came up so many times, because it was the second on my list after Barcelona, but I omitted it because, like Barcelona, it has a Catalan culture, so I thought it might be redundant to mention it. But I also like the riverbed they transformed into a park. I might take up biking.) At least now, I have a list that is prioritized in terms of what to visit with limited time. BTW, I'd live in NY except for winters. The winters in the northeast (as well as the summers, but I enjoy heat) are getting more extreme. I am very fed up with winter. No more winter.


Don’t rule out Seville if you don’t mind heat. Winters are mild, it has great nightlife and there are lots of cycling options. Andalusian culture is very different from Catalan but once you get used to nobody being in a hurry it’s kind of addictive.


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## ksjazzguitar (Dec 22, 2010)

Overandout said:


> Madrid is very different to Barcelona and is more "functional" with less emphasis on tourism and accomodating leisure activities. Madrid is however more (dare I say it?) "Spanish" or perhaps more correctly it is more Castillian.


Yeah, that kind of sums up what I was going to say. I've spent time in a few Spanish cities.

Madrid, well, "functional" is a good word. For me at least, walking around, I could often forget I was in Spain. It felt like walking around downtown Chicago - except everything was in Spanish and the food was better. I mean, I liked it, but it didn't always wow me with its "spanishness". But there certainly were a lot of great things to do and it is a cool city, it just didn't sing to me. But there is a lot of culture there and a lot to do.

Barcelona - we're moving there in January. We love it there. It is a good point in that it isn't as "spanish" or "castillian" or whatever, but has Catalonian culture in the mix, as well as an international/cosmopolitan feel. There is also a lot of culture. We love so it we're moving here. Maybe we got a bad experience, but Barcelona just seemed more vibrant and alive than Madrid. Plus we have friends here so it is a logical place for us to go.

I've been to Sevilla too. We really loved it and it is definitely a cool place with cool sights to see. It definitely feels like you are in Spain, at least the Romanticized image of Spain: flamenco and bullfights. But it is smaller, not really a metropolis. We decided against it because 1) Too hot, 2) Too small for our taste, 3) Too much flamenco. Don't get me wrong, I love flamenco. But I'm a jazz guitarist and it seemed like nearly everything there revolved around flamenco.

I also spent a little time in Granada. It was small but nice. But after you've seen Alhambra and spent some time in Albayzin, I'm not sure it would hold my interest. I'm sure there's more to see, and I definitely want to visit again, but it just isn't big enough for us, and presumably not for the OP.

We spent a day in Toledo. Again, very nice and I'd love to visit again, but it was like going back in time to the middle ages. For some people that might be heave to live there, but for us, it's just a fun place to visit.

Valencia gets a lot of mentions. It seems very nice too.


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

ksjazzguitar said:


> I've been to Sevilla too. We really loved it and it is definitely a cool place with cool sights to see. It definitely feels like you are in Spain, at least the Romanticized image of Spain: flamenco and bullfights. But it is smaller, not really a metropolis. We decided against it because 1) Too hot, 2) Too small for our taste, 3) Too much flamenco. Don't get me wrong, I love flamenco. But I'm a jazz guitarist and it seemed like nearly everything there revolved around flamenco.


The flamenco is promoted heavily for the tourists, but there are lots of jazz clubs in Seville, and a festival too. Maybe you didn't look hard enough! Most of them don't get going till after midnight.



https://www.apoloybaco.com/jazz/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=75&Itemid=147


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## timwip (Feb 27, 2017)

Alcalaina said:


> The flamenco is promoted heavily for the tourists, but there are lots of jazz clubs in Seville, and a festival too. Maybe you didn't look hard enough! Most of them don't get going till after midnight.
> 
> 
> 
> https://www.apoloybaco.com/jazz/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=75&Itemid=147


There is a long history of jazz-flamenco fusion led by Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock; John McLaughlin’ Chick Correae, etc. From my understanding’ the scene continues to be very vibrant en Sevilla.


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## kaipa (Aug 3, 2013)

Not sure if Miles Davis did jazz-flamenco despite the famous album because that was a traditional piece of Spanish music he reworked.


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## timwip (Feb 27, 2017)

kaipa said:


> Not sure if Miles Davis did jazz-flamenco despite the famous album because that was a traditional piece of Spanish music he reworked.


Listen to the song Flamenco Sketches on Kind of Blue,, Concierto de Aranjuex on Sketches of Spain, etc









Miles Davis afirma que el flamenco y el 'jazz' son músicas paralelas


Miles Davis inició el miércoles en Tenerife una gira europea de cinco semanas con un concierto en la plaza de toros de dicha isla que congregó a unos




elpais.com


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## ksjazzguitar (Dec 22, 2010)

Alcalaina said:


> The flamenco is promoted heavily for the tourists, but there are lots of jazz clubs in Seville, and a festival too. Maybe you didn't look hard enough!


Yeah, perhaps. It was just my impression being there for three days. In Barcelona I didn't have to look hard. It was just one factor. Even if I had found a lot, we probably wouldn't have ended up there.

I wasn't trying to start a debate about music genres in Spain.



timwip said:


> Listen to the song Flamenco Sketches on Kind of Blue,, Concierto de Aranjuex on Sketches of Spain, etc


I wouldn't call Flamenco Sketches particularly "flamenco". It's really just a bunch of modal jazz waypoints. The only thing particularly "Spanish" is the Phrygian Major cadence in the 4th progression. That is a fairly common cadence in flamenco and is emblematic of Spanish music (especially as part of an Andalusian cadence), but it is not specific to that.

Yeah, Sketches of Spain, one of my all time favorite records. The arrangement of the Adagio from the Concierto de Aranjuez is wonderful. It has a lot of Spanish flavor in the source and the instrumentations. But it doesn't really have any flamenco feel to it, being more of a third stream jazz thing - just with Spanish source material and instrumentation. I think that some of the other tracks on the recording come closer, I particularly like Solea. Still - a great album. Everyone should get a recording, get a nice glass of wine, turn down the lights and listen to that masterful album.

I think there are some great examples of Flamenco jazz fusion. Paco de Lucia comes to mind, coming from the flamenco side, and people like Al Di Meola have mixed flamenco into their jazz/rock fusion.

But it's all a moot point. It would take me a lifetime to learn flamenco on the level with which I've gotten accustomed to playing jazz and classical. And jazz fusions never really interested me that much. I enjoy listening to them sometimes, but don't particularly enjoy playing them. I have the styles of jazz that I enjoy playing and am not going to change to fit where I live. And I don't have to because we've chosen a more cosmopolitan city where it would be less of an issue. I'm sure there are great musicians in Seville and I'm sure I could find some great music there. But my impression after being there for a few days was that it would be a lot of work to find it. And it doesn't matter because we aren't going to live there anyway.


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## Joey Testa (Jan 5, 2021)

Barcelona is really the perfect walking city. Actually it is an ideal place to retire if you can afford it. Ask me any questions you have on Barcelona as I know a lot about that city.


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