The Surroundings

In the immediate vicinity of the villa there are plenty of nice places and sights.
It is therefore worth the effort to go out and explore the beautiful surroundings.
We would like to give you some tips. The extensive directions and more tips for making trips are in the villa.

 

Axarquía

Axarquía is the region of Andalucia located in the southeast of the province of Málaga, east of the city of Málaga in Spain. Boundary to the province of Granada in the east and north, the Antequera and Málaga areas in the west and the Mediterranean, the Costa del Sol in the south. Geographically, it is between the Montes de Málaga and the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. A beautiful area with a wonderfully mild climate.
 

Vélez-Málaga

Vélez-Málaga is the main city and also the main town of the region and Comarca Axarquía.

In Vélez-Málaga you will find all the important amenities and you will find many shops, restaurants and cafés in the center of the city.
Between Torre del Mar and Vélez-Málaga is the El Ingenio Shopping Center.
Here you will find a big Eroski Hypermarket and many other shops.
Everything in this mall is covered, so nice and cool in summer.
The Eroski is fun to walk through, they really have everything from electrical appliances to garden furniture and from glassware to clothes.
In the supermarket section you can find all your groceries.

In addition, there are several restaurants in the mall besides H & M, Zara, Bershka and other clothing stores. You will also find several shoe stores, a Casa, a shop with stockings and bikinis, sunglasses and nice bijoux and gift shops.

 

Torre del Mar

In Torre del Mar you will find nice cafes and restaurants on the wide elongated boulevard.

On the beach are the famous chiringuitos where you can enjoy the delicious Spanish seefood, for example, espetos de sardinas (grilled sardines of a boat barbecue full of smolt olive trees) or other typical Spanish dishes.

In the streets behind the seafront you will find countless restaurants from typical Spanish to international cuisine.

Along the boulevard you will also find plenty of helladería's where you can enjoy an ice cream. Real homemade ice cream in a coupe or on a cone.

Of course it is also lovely to walk or flinch along the boulevard as the Spaniards themselves do after 16:00. All families are dressed up nicely, take a walk and take a terrace.

The beach in Torre del Mar is wide and consists of dark colored volcano sand. In other places along the coast you will encounter more pebble beaches.

 

La Herradura, Playa Cantarriján

Beyond Nerja and just before la Herradura you will find a beautiful idyllic place, Playa Cantarriján, with a nice restaurant that is really sitting on the beach. You can enjoy a nice meal along with beautiful views.
This restaurant is called La Barraca and is open all year long.

You have to drive for a while, but you can make it a nice getaway because you can also enjoy the beach. At the restaurant you can rent sunbeds and if you walk a bit further you will arrive in a next bay where you can also lie down.

Playa Cantarrijan is a nudist beach, but on the first beach the public nowadays consists of both dressed and undressed bathers, the second bay behind the rock is mainly occupied by nude guests. The beach consists of fairly coarse pebbles and boulders.

The route to it is a bit of a search but you will find a spot that the normal "tourist" will not find easily.

We have made a route description that can be found in our road book.

 

Ventas de Zafarraya

Ventas de Zaffaraya is a village that lies at an altitude of 1000 meters and the road to it has an average slope of 20.89%.

The trip to it is a nice ride, from the coast you go inland and you can already see the gorge at Ventas de Zafarraya. The wide mountain road winds up and offers a beautiful view of the surroundings. The road is used intensively by freight traffic that brings the fruit and vegetables down from the underlying plateau.

Once you cross the gorge you reach a kind of plateau, you drive through the fields. Here, really, everything is grown. The area is known for its fertile soil and the ability to grow vegetables outside the season because of the protected location between West Granada and Málaga Axarquía.

Then the route takes you through a hilly landscape and you can see the Sierra Nevada in the background. In this area you will find many olive trees.

If you think you have seen it .... olive tree after olive tree ............. you come again in another area first large pine forests and then an area with pointed rocks and deep gorges.

Through the green valley of the Rio Verde where again many fruits and vegetables are grown, you finally end up on the coast and drive along the Mediterranean Sea towards Algarrobo.

For this we also have directions in our route book.

 

El Torcal

El Torcal is something you should have seen. This area resembles a playground where giants with stones have been playing around. It looks like all of the boulders are stacked on top of each other.

The 17-square-kilometer national park is located 30 kilometers north of Málaga in the direction of Antequerra near the village of Villanueva de la Concepción.

It is the most impressive limestone landscape in Europe. The whole area was sea about 100 million years ago, after which the area was pushed up to 1300 meters by the collision of the earth's plates. As a result, limestone has become exposed and wind and rain have given the area its characteristic appearance.

In the area there is an information center and you can walk there.

Also for this trip we have directions in our route book.

 

Embalses de Guadalhorce

This area consists of 3 large reservoirs. You can drive around here by car and enjoy the beautiful views. There is a restaurant and you can practice various water sports such as kayaking and canoeing.

You can also have a picnic somewhere in the woods.

The landscape consists of sand- and limestone in which fossils of sea animals can still be found. Here too you walk on the old seabed that has been pushed up and formed into the Iberian peninsula.

In El Chorro is a huge natural gap. La Garganta del Chorro appears as an ax struck in the rock. A bridge connects the two sides of rock on which the train runs from Málaga to Cordoba. More recently, the famous old Royal path "El Caminito del Rey" has been reopened for public after restoration. This is certainly worthwhile to walk. Book tickets in advance via internet because these are often sold out weeks before.

Also for this trip we have directions in our route book.

 

Nice places in the area

Other places to visit are: Ronda, Marbella, Málaga, Frigiliana, Nerja and Sayalonga to name but a few.

 

Winetasting

Wine tasting is possible near Bodegas Bentomiz in Sayalonga, a Dutch-run vineyard.

 

Old Coastal Highway

From Málaga it is also possible to drive all along the old coastal road N340a, following the route along the sea. It's nice to do different places in this way.

 

Skiing in the Sierra Nevada

Skiing is an activity you will not immediately think of when visiting southern Spain. However, during the winter months from late November to April, skiing is possible on the highest mountain of Spain, the Mulhacen.

This summit of 3300 meters is located in the Sierra Nevada and is part of a large ski area, only one and a half hours away by car, with good snow conditions and beautiful views of Morocco and the Alboran Sea.

It is therefore possible to have breakfast on the terrace in the morning, to ski the rest of the day and to end on the beach in the afternoon, a special experience!