One of the reasons why I like going to Nerja is because we don’t have to share a hotel with hundreds of people as we have our own villa. It has a cellar, 2 bedrooms a lounge/bedroom, a front-room/dining-room, two bathrooms and a kitchen. The villa has its own pool, two gardens, swings/climbing frame, a terrace and a roof terrace.
At night the town comes alive, it is a different place altogether than during the day. Every night somewhere in the town there is a party or a fiesta going on and quite often before we go to the fiesta we go to a little café my Granny and Grandad discovered when they first went to Nerja. The café is called ‘Carlos’. The name does not sound very enticing but the service is great and the food is divine. The best meals are meatballs and chips, steak and chips omelettes - or tortilla de espanol - and the best of the best is Paella. Although Paella needs a days notice it is well worth the wait. The town has many excellent tapas bars that my family and I enjoy going to. Although they are basic in appearance the food is yet again excellent and great value for money.
Every morning at about 8 o’clock I go for a run. I go out of the villa gates say hello to the gardener and head for the beach. Once on the beach I turn right and head towards a flight of steps. Beyond the steps is a quarter of a mile run full of beauty. The route is full of terracotta-coloured rocks and cliff faces. The rocks are covered in plants and it is likely you will come across many birds including parrots. Halfway through the run there is a little patch of sand in something resembling an arc. After climbing over the smaller rocks you come to what my dad and I call ‘Eatwell Cove’. When we discovered it it was so beautiful we decided to make a sign saying Eatwell Cove in the sand for all to see. It is only a small beach and there is only enough room for one family. Sometimes at night, when we come home from the Balcon, we walk along the route of my run, and if the tide is in I dive off rocks into the sea. My little brother some times jumps in as well because my mum carries my brothers armbands all the time.
Every other Sunday we go to a village in the mountains called Frigiliana, where our friends, Kathy and Robert, live. To get to the tapas bar for lunch we have to walk along streets that have been decorated with colourful plates and tiles. The streets were decorated like this for the first time 300 years ago. After our meal we go back to our villa and talk about what we can do whilst on holiday in Nerja. There are 3 places I always like to go to. The first is Carlos’ restaurant where we go on our first night. The second is the Balcon De Europa. The Balcon is built on an outcrop of rock that looks out over the Mediterranean. The Balcon is also home to some cannons found from sunken ships. Most of the local people go down to the Balcon and use it as a meeting place. Every night there is entertainment whether it be Jugglers, Flamenco dancers, singers or circus acts it is always a superb way to end a night out.
The third place is the caves. The caves were discovered by 3 boys who were playing football. There ball went down a hole and they went after it. They came across an exquisite sight. There were many stalagmites and stalactites. There were also many skeletons and Stone Age tools. This year was the twenty fifth anniversary and they had a three day fiesta to celebrate it. On the first night there was tribal dancing from the tribes of Africa. On the second was Modern flamenco and on the third was classical guitar music.
At night when we get home we relax and talk about what we have done that day and play a game of some kind. More often than not the game is either trivial pursuits (I win of course) or Monopoly. After that we relax by looking up into the clear skies at the millions of stars and if we look hard enough we sometimes see satellites. When we go to bed all you can hear is the endless symphony of the cicadas and all you can see if you wake up is the light show put on by the fireflies.
Whenever I leave Nerja I always take one last look around the Villa and it’s gardens and then think, “I’ll do it all again next year”.