The Southern Coast of Spain: Nerja
““Sometimes you just need a break in a beautiful place.””
Nerja is a beautiful coastal town in Southern Spain. I discovered it while researching Spain on from the blog Young Adventures. The blogger talked about the beautiful beaches and crystal clear waters. That’s all my friend Allie and I needed to hear to add it to my itinerary in Spain!
It is not easily accessible by public transport (train, bus, etc) so I opted to rent a car in Granada and drive down. The drive takes about 2 hours. Some things to note about renting a car in foreign countries…
I rented from Auto Europe – which the is the European version of something like Hotwire – it finds the cheapest car by using multiple rental companies.
A lot of countries in Europe require you to have an international drivers permit which you can get from AAA for about $25.
You cannot take most rental cars across country lines.
I was kinda apprehensive about driving in a foreign country, but Spain has actually been surprisingly easy to navigate. With the help of Apple Maps – we were driving around like a couple of locals.
Town of Nerja
Downtown Nerja with floral window boxes and cobblestone streets
Our apartment was located right on the beach called Playa Burriana. The water is a beautiful turquoise with colorful umbrellas dotting the sand. The town of Nerja is known for being a “beach resort town” and was made popular, according to Wikipedia, after a famous Spanish TV Teen Soap drama called ‘Verano Azul‘ (Blue summer) was filmed here. The town of Nerja itself is a combination of Malibu, California and what I would imagine Greece to look like. It’s like Malibu because it’s nestled in the Sierra de Tejedra mountains, and the terrain is chaparral. It reminds me of Greece because all the houses are made of stucco and white. Purple bougainvillea bloom and curl up white walls and houses.
Pool Views
Beach views with pineapple chicken kebabs and Spanish beer.
Nerja is a costal town that is very hilly with lots of different beaches that are like coves and that are separated by cliffs. After sunning ourselves, We walked up a huge hill and into the next beach area which was secluded and so insanely beautiful with crystal clear waters. It is call Playa de Carabeo. I spied a good jumping rock and made a mental note to come back the next day and jump off it. We ended up eating dinner at a little corner restaurant called Don Chisciotte where I ordered the best spaghetti of my life.
Playa de Carabeo
8:30 PM and the sun is just starting to set.
After almost a week in Spain, I also had adopted the Spanish lifestyle where we eat dinner at 10, go to sleep at 12:30am and sleep in until 9. I am not typically a stay-up-late person, but when the sun sets at 9:30pm, and you can still be out by the pool tanning at 6pm, it makes no sense to try to fight it.
We had done some research the day before on “best beaches in Nerja” and decided to go to the number one ranked beach. It was said to have crystal clear waters with a waterfall cascading into the ocean. What could be better than that? As it turned out, the article we read was somewhat misleading as you can only get to that spot by kayak and the water was pretty rough. We did end up kayaking out there, and it was absolutely beautiful. The beach that we ended up staying at was called Maro Beach and out was really pretty as well but not as cool – since it didn’t have a cascading waterfall in the background. I was able to channel my inner mermaid and do some swimming in the clear waters which felt amazing. The water isn’t as warm as you’d think it would be for southern Spain but still very swimmable.
Kayaking out to the Maro Waterfall
After spending the day at the beach, kayaking, swimming and laying out, we headed into the adorable beach town of Maro in search of lunch. While wandering, we came upon these stunning bougainvillea that were growing up and over arches in a pavilion. The bougainvillea came in bright purples, yellows, pinks and even reds. The colorful bougainvillea against the white stucco with the blue ocean in the background was breath-taking. We found a café called La Entrada Bar next to the flowering arches and feasted on Manchego cheese and swordfish while looking out over the ocean.
Then we headed back into town for some gelato and ocean-side pool time. Side note: I have now added gelato to my almost-daily meal plan of cappuccinos and croissants.
Enjoying a mini gelato by the pool.
I had made a date with a rock to jump off of so we walked back up the hill and to our favorite little beach, Playa Carabeo, which we have now decided is the best beach in Nerja. This little cove beach has stairs leading down to it that are lined with purple morning glories, water the color of sea glass, and jutting rocks with a crumbling staircase on the other side of the cove. It is breath-taking. I swam into the clear and refreshing water to my rock. First I made sure it was deep enough for me to jump off. I like adventures but I’m not a dumb dumb. Mission accomplished. It just felt nice to swim in the calm water so I ended up swimming from that cove to our hotel’s beach which was probably around a 1/2 mile. This seemed like a great idea until I started thinking about sharks, Jurassic Park and Megaladon…. then I started getting scared and swimming really fast. I probably could have won a race for how fast I swam that 1/2 mile.
Turns out there has only been one recorded shark bite in all of Spain over the last 100 years, and no recent megaladon sitings…..
For dinner, we decided to take a break from our Spanish cuisine and went for Chinese food at a restaurant aptly named Casa de China which still tastes like Chinese food in Spain. Yum city!
The following morning we said goodbye to beloved Nerja in the best way possible. By swimming again at our favorite beach cove. The water feels so cool and refreshing and at the ‘very early hour’ of 11am – we practically had the beach to ourselves.
Nerja is one of those towns where I could have spent a few more days discovering the many different beaches and hikes that it offers. We spent two and half days there which was great, but I left feeling like there was still a lot to be explored.