We got to Nerja in serious need of a vacation.

Now, I know how douchey that sounds coming from someone who’s just spent the last eight months on sabbatical, traveling the world, but hear me out. The last month and a half in Europe had been a whirlwind, rocketing from major European city to major European city, and trying our best to get a taste of each stop. We had to budget our time and money, but couldn’t bring ourselves to make many cuts, and so our European swing became that whirlwind.

We’d been to Geneva, and Chamonix, and Zermatt, and Zurich, and Munich, and Berlin, and Copenhagen, and Malmö, and Stockholm, and Amsterdam, and Zwolle, and Brussels, and London, and Paris, and Porto, and Lisbon, and Sevilla, and Granada, and not to forget one particularly noteworthy night spent on a train. What I’m saying is: we were tired.

Nerja kind of came together last minute. Our original plan had been to continue the European blitz: go to Barcelona, then to Marseille, then to Nice, maybe a stop in Monaco, and then end up in Milan. After London and Paris, though, we both decided we needed a break from huge cities, and we’d both been to Barcelona before, so it got cut. Then, it was looking difficult to find a cheap, reasonable way to get out of Spain, but we found a decent one that involved a layover in Mallorca, so why not just make it a trip to Mallorca! Unfortunately, places to stay were proving to be quite expensive in Mallorca, so we dropped that too.

We’d learned of Nerja from some other professional travelers that we follow on Instagram, Just Globetrotting. We knew nothing about Nerja other than the beautiful pictures they had posted back early in the summer, so armed with just that knowledge, we started planning our trip.

Flights to Marseille or Nice were looking to be expensive, and one of the cheaper solutions was just to fly to Milan. With that being our endpoint anyway, we decided to just slow down some in Spain, and cut the trip to France out. We’d have to see South of France next time.

The bus from Granada was direct, fast, and through achingly beautiful scenery. First, it wound through the beautiful mountains south of Granada, skirting the edge of the towering Sierra Nevadas, before running into the Mediterranean coast at the town of Salobreña. From here, the ride followed the coastline, along the sheer cliff sides, before arriving at the Costa del Sol town of Nerja.

We slung Franz and Helga onto our backs, and lugged them the half-mile or so to the place we were staying at. It was uphill the whole way, and hot, and brutal, but it had a reward at the end: the perfect AirBnb for our stay. It was a large two bedroom, with a big kitchen—perfect, since we wanted to do a lot of cooking here—dining room, two couches in the living room, air conditioning, a patio, and an exit off our patio that led directly to the large pool at the apartment complex. The host had also left plenty of food and snacks for us to have, which just sweetened the deal.

We extended our stay immediately.

A Vacation From Our Sabbatical

There’s not much to say about Nerja, really. It was exactly what we needed. There are some ‘things to do,’ like some caves nearby to explore, but we didn’t do any of that. We went to the beaches, we walked around town, we cooked, we did yoga, we swam in our pool. For six days, that’s what we did.

I could see making an annual vacation out of Nerja, and I don’t think I’m alone in that. British people, especially, seem to make it something of a getaway. Our AirBnb host, in fact, was a British woman. A lot of them seem to buy vacation property here.

The town is adorable, but of course the real attraction is the beaches. They are dazzling, with the warm, clear blue sea, backed by the stark white buildings of the town, and those in turn backed by the sheer, bright green cliffs and mountains that quickly rise. It’s a beautiful scene, and it was crowded.

I think we went at a great time–late September–as I imagine mid-summer must be just nuts there.

Perfect Beaches

We spent the first day at Burriana Beach, the largest beach in town. Closer to the heart of town, there are numerous small beaches, separated by beautiful coves. We had an absolute blast swimming between the coves, sometimes going out long distances to get around the fields of rocks in those coves.

Another detail worth mentioning is that the beaches of Nerja are… topless friendly, you could say. In fact, I would say. Some of the more hidden-away, protected coves were, uh, even a little more friendly.

The nice thing is it didn’t seem like one of those weird, borderline creepy scenarios where only the foreigners were topless, getting a cheap thrill. It seemed as though plenty of locals did, as well. Of course, that didn’t mean there weren’t foreigners getting a cheap thrill, too.

Copa Vino

For the most part in Nerja, we cooked in our apartment. After eating so much cured meat in Andalucía and fried seafood, cooking gave us a good chance to clean up our diets some. And it also made our trip to Nerja exceptionally cheap.

But we did go out to one nice restaurant, called Copa Vino… and blew our budget on cured meat at the same time. We saw pictures online of the charcuterie and cheese board, and that was all we wanted. So we got as fancy as we’re capable of getting, and got one of those boards of our own.

Stand-Up Paddleboarding the Mediterranean

Speaking of boards, Erika had been itching to go stand-up paddleboarding somewhere, anywhere, but the chance hadn’t presented itself yet. In Nerja, it presented itself, and we took it.

We rented stand-up paddleboards for two hours very inexpensively, and had a wonderful time paddling out along the reefs in the crystal clear, beautiful, warm Mediterranean. I almost never want to stand-up paddleboard again, because doing so in Nerja was so perfect.

Naturally, and sadly, there are no pictures from this. Most especially sad is that we didn’t get any pictures of the enormous jellyfish that we saw on our way back in!

Next Time

Nerja was amazing, and even after six days there we weren’t ready to go. But it was time to get back to ‘real life’ and continue the travels (yes I know, let the hate flow through you, I feed off of your hatred!)

We still had one more stop in Andalucía, though extending our stay in Nerja meant cutting our time there down some. It was just a short bus ride further down the coast to the big city of Málaga, which would be our last stop in Spain. Join us there! Or stay here in Nerja, I understand!