Mijas is one of the Pueblos Blancos in Andalucia, near Malaga. It was here that we found a comfortable villa to stay for the winter of 2001-2002.

The town itself (known as Mijas Pueblo) sits high on the mountainside at about 1500 feet. It is typical of Pueblos Blancos because of its location as well as its style: rows and rows of whitewashed buildings clinging to the mountainside, connected by narrow, winding roads and paths (below, left). However, because of its proximity to Malaga and Marbella, it caters to the tourist trade. Tour busses bring hordes of tourists up from the coast so they can be enchanted by the quaint town and trade their Euro for pottery, leather, jewelry, olive wood as well as tourist T-shirts and postcards. But even with the tourists, the town retains it charm. Walking through town you will see the amas de la casa (the woman of the house) mopping their front door steps ((which happen to be right on the narrow road), dogs sleeping in the sun in the middle of the road, and houses with colorful hanging pots of plants. 

In the foothills below the town (the foreground of the picture above) are where the villas are built for the foreigners. There are also houses for the local Spanish, but unfortunately there is a significant difference in the quality and size of the structures. While the foreigner’s houses tend to have interesting architectural details, landscaped yards and pools, the local Spanish houses tend to be simple and utilitarian, with little landscaping other than the garden or orchard. They probably enjoyed their quite country homes a lot more before they were invaded by all these foreigners. There are also Spanish vacation houses for the folks from Madrid who want to have a coastal villa for holidays; these tend to be along the lines of the foreigners’ houses. Clearly, there is a stratification of those with money and those without.

From this area there are great views of the Mediterranean and the coastal towns (picture at right). On the coast here is Mijas Costa and Fuengirola, where we go to use the Internet cafe and do our shopping. Because Fuengirola is a port town, they have several boating supply stores which come in handy for finding quality fittings and electrical connectors. Fuengirola has a large foreign population year round so it is easy to find English books and many items from England. The supermarket is an interesting study in that we can get Irish butter and cheddar, German sausages and sauerkraut, Danish rashers, English biscuits and teas, and Mexican flour tortillas, refried beans and salsas. Needless to say, we don’t want for much. 

The villa we rented (below) from Homes in Spain was built by British chap and is now used to house all those holiday-makers coming to enjoy the sun and heat in the summer. There is not quite the demand in the winter, so rents are much more affordable. Most of the neighbors are German or English, although several of the neighboring houses were empty throughout the winter. It is a nice, quiet area which suits us well for relaxing between journeys. The most important part, of course, is that it has a garage for the bikes. The landlords (Mike and Sylvia) have been very nice to us and made us feel quite at home. They also have 3 dogs and 2 cats that we enjoy when visiting them. We have found that we really miss having pets, so it is wonderful to have others’ to visit.

While we used the pool several times when we first got here in October, the rest of the time it was much too cool. The winter of 2001-2002 was quite cold and rainy (more so than any of the previous 14 years our landlords have been here) so we spent many days inside cuddled up to the propane heater (no central heating in these parts!). The houses are all built with brick which serves them well during the summer, but in the winter it takes them forever to heat up inside. We watch the new houses being built and are constantly amazed at the lack of rebar (reinforcing bars) used in the construction. We don’t want to be here when the earthquake hits (the last one was in the 1950’s and killed several hundred people in Malaga).

We hope to return here next winter. Which we did, in October of 2002.

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