Almeria, just south of the only desert in Europe, is a port city on the southeast coast of Spain, in the province of the same name, considered the driest region of Europe. We enjoyed our week there, and especially the great deals on tapas. Although we believe Almeria could make a comfortable, relatively inexpensive expat destination, we ruled it out because its beach doesn’t pass our muster. The sand is coarse, sloped and hard to walk on, and the slope might make entering the water tricky.
Granada to Almeria
When working out where we were going to go after Granada, our two considerations were the cost of our accommodations and how we were going to get to Madrid for our flight to Dubrovnik, Croatia on June 2nd. Train service from Granada is limited, as we detailed here. Almeria, popular with Northern Europeans in July and August, is about the only easy to reach destination that fit our criteria. Other options would have been to fly or reverse the bus-to-train jig that that we used to get to Granada. After conducting a bit more online research, we decided on Almeria.
The distinction for most scenic train route, so recently earned by Seville-to-Granada, is being passed on to Granada-to-Almeria. Most of the way we were in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains (yes, same name as in our old home state of California), often surrounded by green farmland with snow-capped peaks in the distance. At times, the train tracks cut right through mountain rock. The icing on the cake was that we shared the train coach with only one other person, making for a peaceful journey.
Almeria Orientation
Our Airbnb, at $56 a night, was in a great local neighborhood in an excellent location, about a 20-minute walk from the train station. While in an older building, the fourth-floor walkup (66 steps – many more of these in our future) was also only a 20-minute walk to the beach, which we did four times during our week.
The first day we had lunch at a neighborhood restaurant recommended of our Airbnb host, two small fish plates and two glasses of wine for 7 €. After lunch, the local mercado was closed for the afternoon break so we wandered around town, including a visit to the tourist information office. So glad that we did! In addition to obtaining a free map and learning about the sights, we were informed about the Noche en Blanco celebration happening that very evening. Afterwards, we explored the Paseo Maritimo (beach boardwalk) to kill some time. We didn’t venture onto the sand this day because we were wearing shoes.
After the beach, we hit the central market, unusual for one to be open in the afternoon. Turns out that only a few vendors show up for the afternoon session, but we managed to get everything we needed: vegetables, fruits, bread, yummy salami, and four different kinds of olives. Then it was onto the grocery store to fill in the missing gaps, followed by an early dinner so that we could venture out that evening and experience Noche en Blanco.
Activities in Almeria
Ann particularly wanted to see the ballet performance that was part of Noche en Blanco. Since she got the time wrong, we arrived an hour early and got to experience improv in Spanish, a bit of a challenge for us, but enjoyable all the same.
The ballet performance turned out to be a live music box: a living ballerina perched atop a self-motorized grand piano, with the piano player driving the piano as the ballet dancer twirled mechanically with live arm movements. Kind of hokey, but also fun.
Afterwards, we got to watch a female acrobat do some graceful moves in a hoop while hanging from a bunch of large helium balloons.
The next day, Saturday, we wanted to venture out and see how crowded (not very) the beach was on a weekend in shoulder season and try walking on the sand and getting our feet wet. In May, the water turned out to be about the same temperature as San Diego in the summer, high 60’s to 70. The city does an exceptional job of maintaining its very attractive beach and boardwalk. The beach has occasional oases, irrigated palm trees and other plants, and a few playgrounds. Beach grooming includes sweeping the sand, clearing the periodic foot paths halfway down the sand, hosing down the surfaces of the many showers and foot washers.
A street cleaner of sorts also rides up and down the boardwalk. Despite it all, as mentioned above, the walk-the-beach experience was very disappointing, and we decided that the boardwalk was a much better alternative for the rest of the week.
Free Museums in Almeria
Sunday was a quiet day with not many things going on in town. We decided to visit the free Andalusian Center of Photography. We viewed a rather bizarre (maybe we’re not great at modern art appreciation) exhibition by Edurne Herran, which included photographed self-portraits and imagined two-way typewritten conversations as the artist took on different personas.
Another day, we visited both buildings of the Museo de Arte de Almeria (also free), one near the beach and one near the train station. The Museo de Arte Dona Pakyta is in the magnificent former home of this businesswoman and environmentalist (largely responsible for Almeria’s unspoiled beaches) after whom the museum is named.
This space houses Almerian art from the 1880’s to the 1970’s. The other museum, in a modern building near the train station, houses more contemporary Alemerian art. Both museums, although relatively small, have excellent permanent collections and temporary exhibitions.
Our visits, especially since we generally don’t spend a lot of time in museums (spoiler alert: Dubrovnik), were both enjoyable.
Tapas – the Best Deal in Almeria
Although we enjoyed the free museums, in our humble opinions, the best deal we found was that when having a drink at a bar, you get to pick a free tapa from a list usually 10-20 items long. Each drink gets a free tapa and at some places an extra one was as little as 1.50 €. We could have lunch for about 10 € for two glasses of wine and two tapas each.
Relaxation
The rest of the week was spent catching up on emails, reading, walking the beach. We could have gone up to the Alcazaba (also free) but since we’d already seen a better one in Granada, we skipped it. However, we viewed it daily from some of the windows in our apartment. The cathedral was also an option, but we’ve visited those as well. We decided to relax since the first few days after we left Almeria were going to be a bit hectic.
Next Up: Dubrovnik, Croatia
Ian & Ann