Why Spain?

The purpose of this blog is to chart our decision to move to Spain, our search for a house, our move to Spain and our subsequent life there.

We had intended to retire to Pembroke, and had spent many happy holidays there when we combined coastal walking with looking for a suitable retirement. By 2003 we decided that whilst we both loved Pembroke, it was not the place to retire to.

In November 2003 we took our first overseas winter holiday. We were recommended La Palma as it was good for walking. The walking was not particularly good, but we did like the relaxed Spanish life style.

In January 2004 we went to an exhibition about buying a house in Spain. We agreed to go on a sales tour, where we paid a small contribution and they flew us to Spain, wined and dined us and hoped to sell us a house. We went to Santa Pola, a fishing village near Alicante. We had a great four days, looked at lots of houses, liked one but resisted any temptation to buy. We returned to UK and started our research.

We wanted somewhere we could expand our favourite pastime of walking. We wanted to be near other British, but not too many of them. We wanted somewith a reasonable mild temperature, not too extreme hot or cold. After a lot of research we decided on the Jalon valley area of the Costa Blanca.

We arranged another inspection visit, but this time with an estate agents who were located in the Jalon Valley. In April 2004 we set off four our second house hunting expedition, which was to result in our move to Spain in March 2006.