The Salobreña NewsLetter in English SUMMARY If you are reading this and do not live in Salobreña, then why not visit our lovely seaside town? You can enjoy the many restaurants in the town or on the beach. You can walk through the narrow streets of the old town of Salobreña and see Traditional Spain, you can visit the Castle and Museum. If you are more adventurous, then you can use Salobreña as a base and explore the surrounding area. You can enjoy the sun on the beach and then drive inland to ski on the Sierra Nevadas. We look forward to you visiting Salobreña town and making you welcome here. [ All Online Issues ] A tragic event curtails the ‘Cruz de Mayo’ fiesta in Salobreña. The annual celebrations for this fiesta were tinged with sadness this year and considerably reduced in their festive spirit, due to an horrific accident, which killed a woman and her small child. It appears that the local woman, a married 22-year-old living in the village, was travelling back from Motril with her two-year-old son in the family car when the tragedy struck. She was driving past the slip road access to the coast road from the Granada road, when a car travelling up the slip road, failed to slow down or stop at the junction and forced her car into the oncoming traffic. The car she was driving hit a local bus coming along the coast road from Salobreña. The resulting impact crushed the car and killed both the mother and child instantly. Please, when entering a road at any junction, allow plenty of time and space to join the flow of traffic. Better to wait a little longer before moving into the road, than being involved in an accident, which might kill or injure you or other people. Our sympathy goes to the relatives of the mother and child killed. Lobres News. Lobres will celebrate its main fiesta in June. This is a four-day event, in celebration of its village Patron Saint, ‘San Antonio’. The fiesta is from 10th to 13th June inclusive and will include food, drink, music and dancing. This is a lovely local and traditional Andalusian village fiesta and is really worth a visit, if you have time. I am sure that the villagers will make you most welcome. Lobres is situated just up the Granada road away from the coast; taking the first turning on the left, then follow the signs to the village and the fiesta. Join in and enjoy yourself. What do you do with your old Spectacles? Perhaps like me you throw them away, or keep them in a drawer until you come across them again, then throw them away. Also what do you do with your used stamps and any old X-rays? Why not donate them to a charity that helps people with poor eyesight, etc. in third world countries and sells the stamps to raise money to support their work. You can do this quite simply in Salobreña by leaving them at a local hairdresser. The hairdresser in question is opposite the Post Office and is called “Peluqueria Albarral”. The lady running the salon collects spectacles and postage stamps, as well as old x-rays and would be delighted to receive your donations at any time. Please help those less fortunate than yourself. She is also a good ladies and gents hairdresser!! The Fiesta of ‘San Juan’. This fiesta will be celebrated along the coast throughout Spain, towards the end of this month. This year the fiesta in Salobreña will take place from 22nd to 26th June inclusive. The main event will be on the evening of 23rd June, when traditionally, at midnight, people will wash themselves in the sea for the first time, well at least their hands and faces unless you are brave or foolish!! This washing represents the end of winter and the beginning of summer. There will be bonfires all along the beach in Salobreña and groups of people with their cool boxes packed with food and drink for the night. Traditionally, the food packed should include a special San Juan loaf of bread, with at least one hard-boiled egg inside the loaf. This welcoming of summer, will mean that the coast of Spain will see hundreds of bonfires and thousands of people joining in with this traditional event. If you have not taken part in this fiesta then I can recommend it to you. Go along to the beach with some food and a few drinks and join in the celebrations at midnight, it’s a great festival with lots of people enjoying themselves and, if you can make it through to the morning, the sunrise will be spectacular. Go on, let your hair down and give it a whirl. Enjoy! A special business is based in Salobreña. This is one that provides help for foreigners who find themselves with a problem, no matter what that might be. The person fronting the business is Gemma Odriozola, who you might remember provided a similar, but basic facility, through the Ayuntamiento in Salobreña when she worked there. Gemma has teamed up with five lawyers and they have an office in Calle Cristo 2 Bajo in Salobreña. They can be contacted by telephone or fax on 958 611 452, or on mobile number 626 442 373. You can also email them on foreignerservice@telefonica.net . Gemma informs me that they do not just deal with legal problems anyone might have, but with any problem foreigners might experience when living in or visiting Spain. She also adds that their fees are very competitive. If you have a problem give them a ring. It might be wise to note the contact information anyway for future reference! News about the café/bar ‘On The Rocks’. The first English speaking café/bar in Salobreña is changing its opening hours and offering other services. From this month, June, it will be open on Thursday but closed now on Saturday. Brian and Louise will also be offering take away dishes and you can now buy genuine Walkers crisps from their bar. They are also investigating the possibility of providing English style sandwiches in the future. On The Rocks is a great place to meet with friends and that includes Brian and Louise who run the place, or to sit and enjoy the views in a relaxed and pleasant atmosphere on the beachfront in Salobreña. A new Spanish Bar. Another Spanish bar is going to open on the Salobreña beachfront and next to the Internet café Cyber Surfer. This new bar is due to be opened this month, June, will be called ‘Al Andalus’ and will add competition to the chiringuitos already based along the beach. However, as Salobreña expands, there is an increasing need for more facilities in the village to entertain the many visitors throughout the year. But I hope that any expansion or new facility is given careful consideration by the planning authorities, as to what effects it might have on the environment or to those living here, before being given the go ahead! Talking about expansion and new facilities in Salobreña, what do you think about the next item of news? Please let me know. Retail Therapy comes to Salobreña! Ladies, do you, like my wife, yearn from time to time for some retail therapy and have to go off to Granada, Madrid, or Velez Malaga for a fix? Well in the not too distant future, that will not be necessary. There is going to be a large shopping centre built at the junction of the Granada road, N323, and the coast road, N340. If you know this junction, then you will have seen the large unoccupied house there that belongs to the local council. This building will be demolished to make way for the new centre and a large area of the adjacent land will also be used. To avoid accidents, there will have to be a carefully controlled system for both entering and leaving the retail park, as there is at Velez Malaga. The same people who built the El Ingenio shopping centre at Velez Malaga are building this commercial venture. Work will begin on the centre next year and it is due for completion between March and October 2008. The shopping centre will be called La Kasbah and will provide some 2300 parking spaces. The centre will have a Hypermarket, but the company who will operate this is not yet known, it will have a series of other smaller outlets selling all kinds of goods, including clothes, shoes, leather goods, household effects and sports equipment. There will also be a twelve-cinema complex, a bowling alley, discotheque and a number of restaurants serving a variety of dishes from all over the world. It will bring more work and stability to Salobreña, but I hope it will not bring about the end of the long established, family run, local village shops! Not so much a luxury home, more one that is falling down. From over the water in Motril, comes the sorry tale of problems with some of the new houses being built on the golf course. The golf course at Motril, as you might already know, is flat and very close to the sea. Therefore the water table cannot be very far below the surface of the land on which these new houses, flats and shops are being built. In other words, if you dig down on this land, it will not be long and you will not have to go very deep, before you find water. This does not make a good foundation for buildings! In one group of adjoining houses, there has been a major problem with the structural soundness of the building. The floors in one of these houses have cracked and are in danger of collapse. The builders have had to shore up the floors and board up the windows on a temporary basis and are now in the process of rebuilding the floors and repairing the walls. However, the adjacent and attached homes to the seriously damaged one must also have been affected and it is hoped that any damage to these will be investigated and repaired to ensure that the owners are safe to live there. These homes have been sold as state of the art luxury modern properties with fantastic views, but have they been built by old fashioned jobbing builders? The Cost of Drinks at the Motril Golf course. Do you stop for a drink after your game of golf in Motril, or take friends and visitors to the golf club bar and sit out on their terrace area? Do you know you are being charged an extra 30 centimos for each drink for the privilege of them serving you outside? Those that own and run the bar at Los Moriscos golf club, have now started to charge this extra amount if the waiter has to come to serves you outside. The cost of a drink therefore, becomes €1:80 if you are outside, but €1:50 if you are inside. If you buy and pay for the drink inside and then take it outside yourself and sit down, it remains at €1:50. So are we paying for the wear and tear on the waiters shoes, or are we funding them to go on a keep fit course because it’s so tiring walking to and from the terrace? They also, usually, only provide you with a few mixed nuts with your drinks and have the audacity to call them Tapas!! I shall be drinking elsewhere. Whispers include the following. Salobreña police are going to crack down on British registered cars in the area that belong to people who live here more than a certain number of days each year. They are concerned that many of these vehicles have no M.O.T., road tax and possibly therefore no valid insurance. This also means that the government are losing money, because they are not being paid the transfer tax when the vehicle is re-registered in Spain. The authorities are also very concerned that, in the event of an accident, the vehicle owner would not have sufficient funds to meet the costs of any litigation against them. A new, but traditional Spanish restaurant, will be opening in September on the beachfront and it will be called El Amarre. A Dutch café/bar, also on the beachfront, will be opening this month. More on these items in the next edition of the Salobreña NewsLetter. |