# Advice required for Malaga area



## Mitch Scott (Mar 5, 2013)

Hi guys,

We have booked flights for early May with the intention of trying to find a long term rental villa in the Malaga, Benalmadena, Fuengirola areas.

We would be grateful if anyone could recommend any reputable agencies or contacts so no time is wasted in finding our new home.

We will be moving our two dogs down there come the time so would appreciate any advice with regard to that.

I work offshore so my partner will be alone for a month at a time and will need some friendly faces and activities to help her through. 

Ideally we would like to be based close to places we can take the dogs as well as being close enough to shops, restaurants, pubs etc and within a reasonable driving time to the airport.

Thanks in advance for any feedback

Pam and Mitch


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

Melanie at Sales and long and short term rentals in Benalmadena Costa del Sol is good and honest - I think she's recently got married and is now "with child", but contact her and see what she has!!!

Jo xxx


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

Dont dismiss the areas with a train station. My husband used to commute and that drive to pick him up and drop him off at the airport was tiresome after a while - the train is quick, frequent and cheap!!!!

Jo xxx


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## Mitch Scott (Mar 5, 2013)

Thanks for the advice!!! Will give her a try!


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## Wellington10 (Jan 12, 2013)

Hi

I have just gone through the rental issues !!! I have 4 dogs and found it very difficult to find rental properties that were suitable i.e a good secure garden.

Now moving to a fab house in Sotogolf that is dog friendly !! only taken me 6 months !!!

Be warned, you need to get looking ASAP as I have found alot of people are now looking to rent there houses out short term for the summer holidays.

Please feel free to contact me for rental agents.. I think I know most of them.

Good Luck with your search xx


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## HarryB (Jan 17, 2013)

jojo said:


> Dont dismiss the areas with a train station. My husband used to commute and that drive to pick him up and drop him off at the airport was tiresome after a while - the train is quick, frequent and cheap!!!!
> 
> Jo xxx


My husband worked month about when we lived in La Cala. He flew from Edinburgh to Malaga, train from Malaga to Fuengirola and then bus to la Cala. I agree with Jo, the drive to the airport to get him was horrendous!


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## thrax (Nov 13, 2008)

Ever thought about east of Malaga?? The real Spain still exists and lots of ex-pat communities too. Look at Nerja for instance...


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## David1979 (Feb 15, 2013)

Has anyone ever heard of a company called ebenalmadena? They rent property just up from Carvajal train station.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

thrax said:


> Ever thought about east of Malaga?? The real Spain still exists and lots of ex-pat communities too. Look at Nerja for instance...


Omigod, thrax....we've done the 'real Spain' thing to death

Whatever one imagines the 'real Spain' to be, it most certainly is not confined to the east of Malaga, parts of which are not really that pleasant and are covered with horticultural plastic. Benidorm is not to my taste but it is as much the 'real Spain' as Blackpool is the 'real England' and more Spanish people than British enjoy holidays there.

If one imagines the 'real Spain' to be quiet villages with few immigrants, donkeys and goats in the village streets, a quiet beach with no traffic access...then my village qualifies...except for the fact that the residents would be amazed to learn that parts of the Iberian peninsula are somehow culturally cut off from it. 

My guess is that the phrase is rarely if ever used by Spanish people and is a chimera in the minds of those who prefer to have an idealised version of Spain and ignore the fact that it is a modern European country where motor cars have replaced donkeys and mobile phones, digital tv and other modern contrivances are ubiquitous and have reached the remotest village..

Why do we never hear of the 'real France', the 'real Czech Republic' or the 'real Germany'? Or come to that, where is the 'real England'? Is it Basildon or picture-postcard Lavenham?


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## thrax (Nov 13, 2008)

As far as I am concerned there just isn't a real England anymore and shame on me for slipping up and saying real Spain. I was tired and was trying to tease the OP away from his selected area. But yes we do have donkeys, goat herds and quiet beaches and white-washed sleepy villages and all of those things that people think qualifies for the real Spain and I'm glad you have it too. I think what I really meant was that I hate the wall of concrete that exists West of Malaga; I used to holiday there in my youth and it was just that, a quiet fishing village (apart from Torremolinos and Red Barrel). A year before we moved here we decided (I decided) to go on a nostalgia trip to where I had had many wonderful holidays and I was totally destroyed by what had become of it....


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

Having lived in both sides of Malaga, I would say that Nerja and the surrounding areas are less .... touristy, quieter, not so many high rise hotels and much prettier that Benalmadena, Fuengirola etc, which are now very much "seaside resorts" with the hotel complexes, souvenier shops, bars etc. But some people like that stuff, we're all different. Its got nothing to do with "real" anything tho

Jo xxx


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

thrax said:


> As far as I am concerned there just isn't a real England anymore and shame on me for slipping up and saying real Spain. I was tired and was trying to tease the OP away from his selected area. But yes we do have donkeys, goat herds and quiet beaches and white-washed sleepy villages and all of those things that people think qualifies for the real Spain and I'm glad you have it too. I think what I really meant was that I hate the wall of concrete that exists West of Malaga; I used to holiday there in my youth and it was just that, a quiet fishing village (apart from Torremolinos and Red Barrel). A year before we moved here we decided (I decided) to go on a nostalgia trip to where I had had many wonderful holidays and I was totally destroyed by what had become of it....


That happens everywhere and it saddens me too, thrax. In the 1960s I used to spend a lot of time in Germany, especially in the Rhineland in a lovely 'real German' village on the Rhine. A few years ago I went back to find it altered almost beyond recognition. When I mentioned this to the locals they laughed and asked what I expected after forty years...

Sleepy villages and whitewashed walls are very pretty and appeal to immigrants and tourists seeking 'difference'. But they are no more typical of Spain than a sleepy Cotswold village is typical of England. Spain is Barcelona, Madrid, Bilbao, Seville...the Spain of the regions, of contrasts, of sharp difference.

We have to face up to the fact that Spain is a country comme les autres whose chief difference from the UK is a heightened awareness of regionalism and a warmer climate. We even share the same crap politicians who hold the same misplaced faith in the global free market and despise localism. Globalisation has ironed out many cultural differences that formerly separated us. Whether one likes it or not it is an unavoidable fact. Many people who dislike this fact focus on the unimportant differences - donkeys and whitewashed walls and tranquil beaches can be found in many countries in Europe, from France to Poland to Scotland. 

There's no harm in anyone imagining they have discovered the 'real Spain' - although the very act of 'alien' discovery and colonisation has a transforming effect and creates a new and different reality - but this is a mere romantic notion which in real life the savage forces of globalisation destroyed decades ago.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

jojo said:


> Having lived in both sides of Malaga, I would say that Nerja and the surrounding areas are less .... touristy, quieter, not so many high rise hotels and much prettier that Benalmadena, Fuengirola etc, which are now very much "seaside resorts" with the hotel complexes, souvenier shops, bars etc. But some people like that stuff, we're all different.* Its got nothing to do with "real" anything tho*
> Jo xxx


Only to the extent that this too is Spain, one aspect of the Spain of 2013 and therefore more the 'real Spain' for those who like thst concept than a sleepy village!!


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