Nerja on the Costa Del Sol, Spain - The Perfect Holiday Destination
Accommodation and Balcon de Europa
Nerja has a population of 21,000 people with 25% being ex-pats. It’s a seaside holiday place on the Costa del Sol.
It is only a 3 hour train trip from Madrid to Malaga, then a 45 minute taxi/bus ride from Malaga to Nerja.
Our apartment was in a perfect location in the centre of Nerja overlooking the Plaza de Espana, about 200m from the Balcon de Europa and Calahonda Beach. It has a roof top pool with views of the Mediterranean. This is the local agent that handles the bookings. Click here for details.
The plaza is quiet all day, although it fills up with children playing football from about 4pm in the afternoon.
It is also a 100m walk to the streets full of bars and restaurants and shops. Very easy and convenient to find somewhere to eat.
The Balcon de Europa is one of the most famous landmarks on the Costa del Sol. It is a headland with a beautiful tiled promenade, lined with palm trees and white arches. You have 180 degree views of the coastline and all the beaches that make up Nerja. It’s a very popular spot in Nerja, especially to take pictures with the Mediterranean in the background. If you want to take pictures without too many people, then around 8am – 9am in the morning is best. Sunset is popular, but definitely worth seeing at this time of night.
There is a small Plaza de Iglesia at the beginning of the promenade with a gorgeous little church – Iglesia de El Salvador. It worth taking time to go inside the church – very pretty.
Nerja is a very clean city, every day the local council workers are out in the morning sweeping, washing, trimming, and emptying bins.
Food in Nerja
There is such a huge and varied choice of places to eat and types of food to eat in Nerja – it’s actually one of the things we loved the most. There are free tapas bars, Italian restaurants, Mexican Restaurants, seafood restaurants, cheap family restaurants and fancy restaurants and everything in between.
Breakfast is one of the best meals of the day – I love the popular Spanish brekkie of Café con Leche and Tostada de tomate with olive oil – 3 euros. So delicious.
You can have a traditional Spanish lunch of Menu del dia for about 10 euro or you can find a nice little café that serves fresh rolls – so much choice.
What we discovered was there are basically three types of tapas to have. One is the free tapas and Nerja is full of bars that offer free tapas where you buy a drink and get free bite size portion of food. There are some bars like Bar Redondo that you can actually chose your free tapa (Lyle’s favourite was the sea bream) or our favourite, La Piqueta where you are served nice little bread rolls with jamon, chorizo and cheese. Another favourite was Los Barriles where your tapa gets more substantial the more drinks you have.
There are literally hundreds of bars to choose from – you could never try them all.
If you feel like you want to sit down and have a meal and not just tapas, once again there are some really good restaurants to choose from. Restaurants offer raciones – which are more substantial tapas for individuals and then there are raciones which are bigger portions to share, or you can order a full meal from an a la carte type menu. Our favourite restaurant was D’vinos and Botanic.
A couple of other restaurants we liked that were right on the beach that were good value are Bamboo and Portofinos.
If you want to sit right on the beach and eat fish cooked over coals or paella cooked over an open fire, then you need to go to Burriana Beach which is a 20 minute walk from the centre of Nerja. The restaurants in Burriana Beach specialise in seafood.
One of the best things about our time in Nerja was definitely the food. We looked forward to going out every night to discover somewhere new, or try a new dish at a favourite bar or restaurant.
The Beaches of Nerja
There are seven main beaches in Nerja. The one closest to the Balcon de Europa and closest to our accommodation is Playa Calahonda. It is only a small beach, but there are las hamacas – or banana lounge and umbrellas you can hire for 6 euros for the whole day. You need to book a day ahead as they are popular, but well worth it. It is lovely sheltered beach right next to the Balcon de Europa headland – so it is protected from any wind. The water temperature certainly got your attention.
The biggest and most popular beach is Burriana Beach. It’s about 1km long. It is wide and flat and there are so many places to hire chair and umbrellas. The beach is lined with cafes and restaurants right on the sand – so you can go and buy a bottle of wine, or cold beer and walk back to your chair and enjoy your time on the beach. Very civilized.
No matter where you stay in Nerja there is beach that will be close and they all have chairs and umbrellas, toilets, showers and if not a bar at least a little shop where you can buy cold drinks and icecreams.
Lyle and I have a great conversation about all the things to see and do in Nerja. You can listen here. Listen now