Vejer de la Frontera, Costa de la Luz

If you would like to see lots of photos of Vejer and the area I have a photostream on Flickr

www.flickr.com/photos/vejerholidays/

Between Christmas and New Year the local people in Vejer have a day when the old town is decorated and themed in the style of Bethleham or "Belen". The children (and adults) dress up in biblical clothes and have various stalls selling bread, meat etc. They even make a pretend stream and have the children fishing! There are various animals - sheep, goats etc. All in all a very "real Christmas" experience and well worth going to if you are in the area. 

Christmas itself is very much a family affair - although the bars open very late on Christmas Eve and there is a marquee on the small car park in the middle of the town where there is music, drink at very reasonable prices which goes on to the early hours of the morning!  Virtually the whole town seems to go to this event and celebrate Christmas.  The marquee stays in the town until New Years Eve when everything is shut until midnight and then the town seems to come to life!

We went to Vejer in January 2005 on an inspection trip and fell in love with it in a weekend!  It was just what we were looking for in Spain.  We hadn't been to Spain before apart from a day trip from France and another day trip from Portugal to Ayamonte.  We couldn't believe how unspoilt the area was.  The beaches are miles and miles of golden sand with no high rise buildings and the town itself is very pretty and the locals don't really speak any English which is what we wanted.  We didn't want to be in an area where you could get by without speaking any Spanish.  We had already started learning Spanish at evening classes but only had a grasp of the basics.

We bought our house which we finally occupied in February 2007 and haven't looked back since!

We have been renting our house out which has been much harder work than we thought.  Running costs are considerable but we are just about breaking even.  We have had a steady stream of visitors who have all really enjoyed exploring the area.  This year we had one return visitor and next year we have 3 already.

There is so much for visitors to do - Cadiz is only about 40 minutes away and is a lovely city to explore.  It is full of narrow streets, churches and of course the famous cathedral.

Jerez is also about 40 minutes away and apart from the historic centre you can do a visit to a bodega or see the famous horses.

Conil is 15 minutes form Vejer and is a really Spanish seaside town.  It gets quite busy in the summer with mainly Spanish visitors but also gets some Germans and British visitors.  It is all low rise and has large sweeping beaches and also some nearby coves.

Our local beaches are El Palmar, Zahora and Trafalgar - scene of the famous battle.  El Palmar is 9km long and has only a handful of restaurants - now large hotels.  The surfing and body boarding is really good and there are several surf schools where you can hire equipment and have lessons.

Vejer itself is wonderful to wander around.  The old town is full of narrow streets with a castle, church and the beautiful Plaza de Espana.  There are loads of really good restaurants and prices are quite reasonable.  There are several artisan shops including a couple of shops where they make their own jewellry.  There are also some lovely pottery shops nearby.

The whole area is very unspoilt and nor far inland you have the mountains around Arcos and Grazelema.

If you haven't been to this part of Spain you are really missing out, I just hope it can stay the way it is.