# Living one year in Spain in 2021/22 - but WHERE should we look?



## amlachance (Feb 13, 2021)

Hello,

We are currently residing in the US and are US and French citizens. 
We are empty nesters (age 57 and 60) looking to spend a year in Spain but aren't sure where to look. We would like to rent a home, be near a coast/beach where the water is swimmable in warmer months. My husband is part fish and longs to swim as much as possible (read: not surf but swim, ie not huge waves).
I speak basic Spanish but am a lover of language and expect to immerse myself and improve quickly (I speak French fluently). I'd like to be where I can use mainstream Spanish and not need to learn a dialect. 
We'd like a town large enough for good restaurants, grocery stores, transportation, a social life, a lively church and we also eat mostly plant-based diet with some fish. But we also are light sleepers and quiet nights are desirable. We are thinking we can't do a townhouse or apartment because of how late people stay up there and we're more interested in winding down quietly at night. 
We've done a little research on Valencia and Malaga. Malaga I know is crowded in summer with tourists but we like it for the weather and ease of getting to Madrid where we can then fly to many destinations easily. (my husbands family is in Paris and the S of France)

Any suggestions are welcome. 
As crazy as it sounds, we've never been to Spain! We've traveled in Central America and several European countries as well as some islands but never to Spain!

Thanks for the suggestions.


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## NickZ (Jun 26, 2009)

Even Barcelona if you want to use Spanish you'd be fine. The need to use local languages isn't a requirement. Everybody in Spain understands Spanish.

When you say you want easy travel options do you mean around Europe or further? With in Europe even the smaller regional airports will have flights to Paris and many of the other European capitals. You don't need to head to Madrid for this. The time needed to take the train to Madrid you could fly to Paris,Barcelona,Madrid or London to catch your connection.

Yes people are often up late but street noise is a function of how well built things are. Open windows and even a quiet street will be noisy. 

Unless you're looking at a country villa I'm not sure what other options you've left yourself. Country life just trades different noises when compared to city life. 

I'd be careful with a small beach resort type town. They can close down hard come winter.


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## amlachance (Feb 13, 2021)

Thanks, NickZ,

When I was researching the ease of trains and flights from Valencia, for example, to Toulon/Hyeres, which is where we'd likely want to go in France (sometimes Paris), flights were far from direct, long travel days and very expensive. Even to Nice it was expensive and long. Maybe I'm not on the right travel sites but then I checked Madrid and there were many more affordable and faster options so we thought being within a fast train ride to Madrid might make sense, but this is preliminary research which is why I am on here! Also our adult girls would be coming to visit from California, so fewest connections and shortest travel times as well as affordability is what we're investigating.
I think our concern of noise is more about an apartment and sharing walls/floors/ceilings with residents who are up very late. This is why a house/villa is appealing to us but we haven't ruled anything out yet. 
Is Malaga a ghost town in winter?

Priority for my husband is easy access to a very swimmable beach in warmer months.


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

I live in an ático (top floor apartment) in the centre of a large town and it's the quietest place I've ever lived in - almost too quiet as we rarely see any of our neighbours in the hallways or crossing the garden, and it can feel rather cut off from comunity life unlike our old Spanish house where the front door opened directly onto the street. All of the other occupants of our block (and the other block in our community, facing ours across the garden) are Spanish, and noisy they are not. Nobody slams doors or plays loud music, the children living here don't race up and down the corridors and when they play in the garden they are not overly noisy. The only time I hear noise from other apartments (apart from if someone is having renovation work done) is if I'm in the kitchen (which faces the internal well of the buildingwith the window open and can hear voices coming from other kitchens where they have the window open too. Many times we have rented apartments (usually áticos) in Spanish cities for short breaks, and have always found them quiet too - but they have been residential blocks rather than holiday apartments and when people have to get up and go to work in the mornings they don't tend to stay up partying until the early hours. Of course, I suppose you can always be unlucky and get one inconsiderate neighbour who makes everyone's life a misery, but that can be the case in a house too. Even if you're some distance away from neighbours, the sound of barking dogs, car doors slamming or loud music being played with windows open can be quite a nuisance.

Málaga (30km to the west of where I live) is definitely not a ghost town in winter.


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## NickZ (Jun 26, 2009)

amlachance said:


> Thanks, NickZ,
> 
> When I was researching the ease of trains and flights from Valencia, for example, to Toulon/Hyeres, which is where we'd likely want to go in France (sometimes Paris), flights were far from direct, long travel days and very expensive. Even to Nice it was expensive and long.
> Is Malaga a ghost town in winter?
> ...


Right now all the schedules are a mess. If you can find an airline running half it's normal flights that's a miracle. If you're looking at the near term flights they aren't representative of normal schedules. 

What did you use to search? Google flights is a fairly good search engine for flights which avoids you having to check each and every airline.

Madrid and Barcelona have the two biggest airports with the most flights . For example just Ryanair flies I think three times or four times a day back and forth to Rome. Then Vueling with a similar number of flights. Paris would be similar. Nice from Barcelona IIRC is Easyjet.

But the smaller airports also tend to have flights. Maybe once a week instead of four a day.

If you're looking at Ryanair be careful with the airport names. They have a nasty habit of renaming airports to make them seem closer to major cities. If you use the airport codes you'll be safe.

Are you looking for a place right on the beach? Or a place you could drive to? There are countless beaches all along the med that would fit your request. Some are more commercial. Some are totally rustic. The rustic ones you'd need to drive to.

I'll let the others comment on Malaga. Barcelona,Madrid,Valencia and a few others I can comment on.


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## amlachance (Feb 13, 2021)

Excellent point about my researching during this lockdown covid madness! I had not thought of that so thank you!
I was using Expedia. I typically use that for a general idea of prices and then go onto the airline websites to check further. 
Well, walkability to a beach would be a dream for us but it would depend what the downsides are. We do plan to have a car but imagine that in warmer months finding parking on the best swimming beaches could prove frustrating. When we vacationed in the S of France we never drove to the beach - it would have been madness to try and park! 
Of course, if we're there a long time and buy bikes and don't live up some steep hills, that's always an option for getting to the beach, too. 
My reading seemed to indicate that Valencia has a lot going for it bc of the beaches and proximity to Ibiza and Formentera but we aren't sure how warm and swimmable the water is compared to the more southern regions of Malaga. Not to mention we'd like a warmer winter climate. 

Thank you, Lynn for sharing your quiet experiences living there. That is encouraging!


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

The beaches of Valencia are beautiful, pale sand and very wide, so not crowded. The ones along the Malaga coast are not so pretty, mostly darker sand or more stony. We are not beach lovers ourselves so that didn't sway our decision about where to live. We have liked Valencia when we have visited, but I think Málaga is definitely better for international flights. Both are very "walkable" cities which is something I like.


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## NickZ (Jun 26, 2009)

amlachance said:


> Excellent point about my researching during this lockdown covid madness! I had not thought of that so thank you!
> I was using Expedia. I typically use that for a general idea of prices and then go onto the airline websites to check further.



I just checked Expedia. No Ryanair. No Easyjet. Those are two of the largests EU airlines. Try Google flights instead.

Warm sea is a subjective question. One of my neighbor swims every day in the Med. I think she's nuts but out she goes.


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## amlachance (Feb 13, 2021)

ha, well, we're not that hardy. Think the French Riviera in summer months...or the Caribbean.
Thanks for the airline help. Much appreciated.


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