Posted: Sun May 21, 2023 10:53am
Hi fultime
I just want to second what Matthew wrote, not that he needs it he's a well know character and knowledgable poster on this forum but I want to point out an area of Mojácar Playa with less daunting hills, no sherpas required to take the groceries home.
Having looked places from Cullera to Allicante and then living in Xábia for a 9 months. Again nice but very built up. It looks like the gods of urban development sneezed on the hills filling every availalbe space with houses plus it's VERY expensive. It's part of an area referred to as the ''Golden Triangle''. We also found once you left the commerical districts there were absolutely no foot paths with the roads being insanely narrow. Barely room for two cars. If you wanted to walk anywhere outside of the towns you were risking life and limb.
We then began looking at places form Puerto de la Duquesa to Marbella- lovely but out of our budget. While out that way we looked into the area between Tarifa up to Jerez de la Frontera again lovely but the coast was way to windy, couldn't walk on the beach in shorts without getting you legs sandblasted.
We have seen a lot of palces and for various reasons ruled them out.
We then explored places from Elche to Puerto de Mazarrón and up to Húescar Granada- where we bought a cave house beautiful quite peacefull but turns out not for us, we miss the sea.
So we looked into places from Aguilas to Mojácar
We got an apartment in Las Buganvillas which is very nice but very quite in winter.
We have finally settled on Mojácar Playa at the other end away from the crowds in the Vista de los Ángeles-Rumina area before you cross the river into hotel land. Its not as busy as the area from the Parque Comercial to the Best Indalo but with in easy walking distance to the center and a short bus ride to the Pueblo or the Red Cross roundabout where as mentioned there are loads of bars resturants cafes shops etc..
If you would like that ''Spanish experience'' the bus in the other direction go to the lovely fishing town of Garrucha where there are numerous good Spainsh restaurants. Please be aware thought that some are closed in winter and if they are open they only open for dinner at 8PM.
Any shops that stay open during the winter also close from around 2 PM unitl around 6 PM
As for Roquetas de Mar, I am sorry to say I can not speak to it. We were going to look into it and saw a lot of reallly nice places on the interweb apartments, houses, beach walks, resturants etc.
We never even made it as we came over the hills on the motorway past Almeria and saw RdM in the distance it was all high rises stuff we looked at each other and said 'nope!'.
We got off on the first availalbe exit and turned around .It seemed to be only really a suburb of Almera and again not for us .
As has been pointed out by numerous posters on this forum, with a WIDE variety of opinions and likes it all depends on what you want, what, your looking for and what you are willing to spend.
After all this all I suggest is either RdM or Mojácar
Give it a try first and see if it's for you.