got kefalonia booked for just me and wife next june, but also looking at a family holiday with bro and his family (2 adults 2 kids), so looking for a villa (3 beds at least).

hes given me all sorts of areas to look at, but his favourites granada so thought id concentrate on that first, then its better for him.

hes linked me to have a look at the ownersdirect list of villas in granada.

what im finding is a bit of a peculiarity with the website. if i zoom in on the map, what started out as just 48 villas quickly becomes hundreds (id have thought thered be less the more i zoom in).

still, no worries, ill have a trawl through them but i thought id ask if any of you had any experiences of nice areas of grenada to concentrate on, or indeed any particular villas.

i know nothing about the place but we’d want a few shops/cafes nearby and also near the sea rather than inland.

anyone got any experience of the area?

ta

No ideas on areas. But spent a while there on a cycle touring holiday

Its a great city. Top attraction the Alhambra

What time of year are you looking at?

Brace yourself, my dear

Can’t speak so much for the Costa, but the city itself has formed a permanent and very happy part of my life.

looking at end of august/beginning of september. area would be the costa tropical.

bit more research has found the area centres around a few towns on the coast, almunecar, salobrena and motril i think.

any idea of the beaches and towns there? sandy, shallow beaches would be good as my bro’s kids are quite young.

We stayed a bit further over near Almeria a couple of years ago. From memory on a road trip to Granada via the coast and the A44, Motril is very industrialised. The area to the east of Motril has a few smaller resorts, and the hinterland between the coast and the hills has a lot of Plasticulture, so pick carefully if you want good views. If you could cope with going further east, San Jose on the Capo de Gato is fabulous. Very few Brits about.

update on this, my bro has booked us a villa in the ‘la herradura’ area, about 3km from the beach.

anyone know this area and can give me any advice on places to go, things to see and do?

thanks 🙂

My mate used to run a biking holiday outfit in the area, initially in Lujar, then in Lanjaron, sort of halfway between Granada and the coast and I spent quite a lot of time there both riding and festering. The area around Almunacar is very much Spanish beach holiday territory, quite low key, nice but not spectacular beaches and pleasant enough with bars, restaurants etc.

Granada’s quite a cool city and the Alhambra is special, Moorish Palace, stunning gardens etc. And the white villages up in the hills – Bubijion, Pampaneira etc – are quite quaint and it’s a pretty area. Motril is big and commercial, lots of light industry, not much interest there tbh.

The area has a nice vibe if you just fancy chilling out, drinking beer, eating tapas and relaxing. Good place to ride bikes as well. Can’t tell you much more I’m afraid.

Some canny riding around the back of the Alhambra. Lovely city, well worth taking the bike. Was there last December, got up to 20C during the day, down to 0 at night. Bright and sunny too.

thanks guys, its a family holiday so wont be taking the bike, and

The area has a nice vibe if you just fancy chilling out, drinking beer, eating tapas and relaxing.

sounds about perfect for us 🙂

probably will have to hire a car too id say as it doesnt seem walking distance to anything.

cheers

Don’t overlook Malaga. Was there a couple of weeks ago and have just booked to go back next spring I was so impressed.

La Herradura is one of the few nice options on that stretch of coast IMO.

This restaurant in Almunecar was quite special when we went 10 years ago…
http://www.elchaleco.com/

There’s a nice beach a bit down the coast where you park on top of the cliff and walk down the fire road, much more natural feeling than the resorts. Popular with the locals (and nudists).

starting to think about sorting transport now so thought id resurrect this thread…..

essential journeys will obviously be the return journeys from malaga airport to the villa, plus we will also need our two lads to be going back to the airport midway through the break to travel home themselves. then there are smaller journeys from villa to beach etc.

does anyone know the rough price for a taxi journey from the airport, and also smaller local journeys? we cant work out whether itll be best to keep paying taxi fares or take a chance with car hire for the whole duration and make the airport runs ourselves.

thanks 🙂

Take the bus. Buses are plentiful, cheap and good in Spain.

I lived in Granada as a student in 1977 and had a ball; I expect it’s smarter, more salubrious and more expensive now.

Just returned from Orgiva on the edge of Alpujurras and about 50k from Granada.

We hired from Avis – reasonable price and despite all the chatter on line pleasant, helpful and hassle free. (PS take out Insurance 4 carhire for excess. Also It did take about an hour to pick up the car! If there is only one driver send them downstairs without waiting for luggage! Driving is easy, roads are mostly quiet. Some complicated junctions – we downloaded Google and saved key places and it worked perfectly for directions. Every mountain road was wide and all villages had parking – though some are very narrow if you get a large car!

As said above Granada is superb – we went once to the city and once to Alhambra – could easily have gone more often. NB you will need to book Alhambra about 3 months in advance to get tickets and the timeslot you want for Nasrid palaces (the bit you really must see)PS Allow at least 30-45mins after you arrive to collect tickets and get to Nasrid . There is lots of advice on line though the whole process of arriving and getting in is a lot simpler than they make it sound.

Parking on the edge of the city is easy – we used Palacio de Congresos both times – about 15mins walk into the centre. Plenty of buses and taxis.

Elsewhere – Motril nothing to see – some pleasant coves along the coast road but probably nothing different from where you will be.

Salobrena – amazing old town well worth a hike up the hill to castle ( though closed 2-5:30)

Alpujurras – pleasant if slightly touristy white Moorish villages beyond Orgiva – with walks and reasonable parking – we spent most of our time doing that. But it was hot – our walks were all short.

Almeria – we went to Gabo/San Jose coast. Motorway is fast though it seemed a long way for not much.

Our hosts also recommended time in Malaga.

For an exciting day out how about the restored Caminito del Rey – I couldn’t persuade Mrs B on that one!
http://www.caminitodelrey.info/en/#1

PS Nearly all shops are closed on Sunday and nearly all small shops close 14:00 – 17:30 and Carrefour sells the only decent beer IMHO!

Have fun

thanks a lot steve.

just been googling and looking at the map for those places. i cant see us getting as far as orgiva and granada, seems a long way from where we are. salobrena looks viable tho, so we’ll see what transport we plump for.

cheers for the info.

http://www.elnido.co.uk/

In the days before everybody had cellphones I flew with my bike to Malaga and cycled up to Orgiva to fulfil a long-held promise to go and stay with some friends who were living quite a hippy lifestyle.

When I got there, the place was empty. I found a neighbour who told me my friends had gone home to England the week before. I spent the week in a hotel in Orgiva and went out cycling every day, which got me very fit indeed.

We were in the area on honeymoon and, after months of trying, I managed to get a room in the Parador inside the Alhambra for our last night.

The hotel was nothing special, but it has a few major plus points:

1. Go into the Alhambra any time you like.
2. Including some areas/time slots before/after the crowds are there, so you get the place almost to yourself.
3. They have a restaurant with a terrace over looking the palace. Food is, again, nothing special, but the setting is the most stunning place I’ve ever eaten a meal. We almost missed our flight in the morning because we sat up so late on the terrace drinking Spanish-size measures of single malt and looking at the view.

well, we’re here now, we’re in a villa above la herradura, up a nasty winding track, but the views are spectacular.

booked a car from malagacar.com, seemed painless enough so far, lets hope thats still the case when we take it back 🙂

its HOT!

just going over this thread again to remind me of the recommendations, so if anyone else has anything add itd all be much appreciated.

cheers

back now so just a few thoughts and experiences if anyones interested 🙂

had a lovely holiday, its a beautiful part of the country/world. had a villa up in the hills, what a view!

didnt much care for almunecar, bigger town which didnt seem to have many redeeming points. didnt like the beach either, just stones no sand. plus i got a parking ticket 🙂 how was i sposed to know theres yellow and blue dashed lines and you can only park in the blue zones? (yes i could have done my homework first) 🙂

preferred la herradura altho again, same stony beach so we only had about half hour in the sea the whole holiday. we tried looking for a nice sandy beach but they just dont seem to exist on that part of the coast. shame.

did the caves at nerja, that was good, well worth a visit. didnt manage to get to granada which is a shame, nobody seemed up for a city visit in the heat, too much fun round the pool 🙂
went to frigiliana after the caves which is a lovely little town in an awesome setting, very picturesque.

one place i was really disappointed with was orgiva. we decided to do a day in la alpujarra and orgiva seemed to closest so went there. i was expecting a lovely whitewash town a la frigiliana but found it dirty and noisy, very disappointed, couldnt wait to leave it. very hippyish, full of crusties with their graffiti’d camper vans, that type of vibe. thats not a negative btw, some cool vans and it was interesting to people watch. and the scenery around the area….. WOW!

we’d defo go back to the area, so many more places to see there, maybe explore more of the alpujarra (but not orgiva) and granada next time.

thanks a lot for all your help, invaluable advice on here 🙂