The latest post in our guest blogging series is from Rod, who writes at the excellent blog, Rod’s Spanish Stuff. Here he writes about his ‘Nightmare’ home in Andalusia:
Well, nightmare is probably a bit strong. This is more a cautionary tale, one about living in an old house in an Andalusian pueblo in winter.
A couple of years ago I took an eight month career break to go and study Spanish in Spain – I reckoned that if I was ever going to get fluent before I got too old to benefit from it, living in Spain was the only way! My plan was simple, I would move to Spain in October and study at a language school in one of the Andalusian hilltop ‘white towns’, so I could find my feet in Spain and build up enough confidence in my Spanish to be able to deal with big city life in Sevilla after the New Year.
Soon I had found a house to rent which could easily have featured in one of those British television programmes that have titles like ‘Dream Home in the Sun’. Indeed, according to local rumour, this house had done exactly that. The house was immaculately furnished and had a roof terrace with a view all the way down the coast to the mountains of Morocco. I could not believe my luck. I took out a three month lease, and settled down to a new daily ritual of attending classes in the morning, studying and writing in my new-found domestic paradise in the afternoon, and hitting the local tapas bars in the evening.
But then, about the beginning of December, the Spanish winter began to bite, and suddenly I’d never felt so cold in my entire life, not even once during a February visit to Finland when the outside temperature dropped to minus 20°C. And I’m not even talking about the winter that dumps northern Spain under several feet of snow. I’m talking about the Andalusian winter that on the weather forecast looks fairly benign, featuring lots of sun symbols and maximum temperatures often reaching up to 20°C.
What had happened was that my house had begun to develop its own micro-climate. Because its windows were so small, and because they gave on to narrow streets, the house was effectively a cave – in the summer it was a welcome retreat from a sun burning down not that far from Africa, but in winter the absence of natural light made it very gloomy and very cold. I had several electric heaters, but they made little impact except to warm the air immediately in front of them. The antiquated floor tiles which would have looked so picturesque on television became my particular enemies. Make the mistake of placing any limb in contact with the floor, and immediately any warmth that you might have left in your body was swiftly conducted away.
In the mornings the house was so cold that getting out of bed became a major ordeal. Yet it was essential to make the house even colder by flinging the windows wide open to clear the damp, otherwise the atmosphere became impossibly thick and fetid. Mildew began to build up on the wall and the doors and became hard to shift. The humidity made even the pages of my workbooks wrinkle up.
As it became impossible to stay inside the house any longer than was necessary, and certainly impossible to concentrate on studying there, it became essential to get outside whenever the sun was out. Fortunately, even in December, the sun could feel really quite warm to the skin, but even that was not enough to thaw me out completely. There is a dessert called Baked Alaska that consists of frozen ice-cream covered in meringue, placed in an extremely hot oven in such way that the outside cooks but the ice-cream remains frozen. That was me. The sun was warming me up but I was still frozen inside. Outside in the sun I had become this human Baked Alaska, and to be honest it didn’t make me feel so good.
OK, so perhaps I’ve exaggerated all of this a bit for dramatic effect, but it’s to make the point that while those ‘Dream Home in the Sun’ television programmes tend to represent southern Spain as a place where there is eternal summer, there is indeed a winter and it bites. Some may argue these old houses are perfectly habitable then; you just have to be prepared to spend a lot of money on renovating them. Others may assert that some discomfort for the odd month or two is just part of the real experience of campo or pueblo living, and that I’m just a pampered city boy (yes, definitely guilty as charged!) Don’t get me wrong, the house was absolutely beautiful and I’d happily stay there again any other time but winter, and the pueblo was a really great, friendly place to be. But when I eventually ended up in Sevilla, it was like at last coming home. Here were all the things about the city I’d missed: cinema, live music, football, shops; and I then began to take advantage of all the opportunities to integrate you get in a big, Spanish city, such as the greater availability of intercambios and the wider possibilities for finding work. I’m moving back to Spain soon, but forget those television dream homes in the pueblos or the campo, it’ll be back to a city for me!
So if you’ve moved to, are thinking of moving, or dreaming of moving to Spain, which would it be: city, pueblo, campo or costa? Or do you know someplace in Spain which combines the best of all worlds? If so, please let us in on your secret!
Remember to catch more from Rod at his excellent blog, Rod’s Spanish Stuff.
Theresa
13 Jun 07 at 9:54 am
Oh, that brings back memories. I live in Pamplona, but I spent last year in Málaga with my family, and we suffered the cold more in our flat there than we ever have in Pamplona. Most houses and flats in Málaga don’t have central heating and often the windows aren’t very well isolated and cold seeps in through the cracks. In the North every house or flat has heating, it’s a must, otherwise you wouldn’t last a week. I did have a great time in Málaga, though, and I think if we’d have had a flat with heating it would have been perfect.
Pepino (Dave Hall)
13 Jun 07 at 7:23 pm
What an experience! It’s not often that someone can say they went from Spain back to Wales in order to DEFROST themselves!!
Gary
13 Jun 07 at 11:21 pm
As a city dweller through and through I can certainly relate to the need for street lighting, traffic and errr.. something to do with my time. Gill reckons I’m the only person in the world that can go stir crazy outdoors – takes about 3 days. She is however happy to take advantage of this fact by finding me a succession of missions and errands to perform whilst she completes her daily sojourn, usually in a horizontal position on the nearest beach.
princess banter
14 Jun 07 at 11:09 am
Sounded like you had an incredible time! Makes me wish I was there too
Franklin Liao
14 Jun 07 at 5:36 pm
I’d like to go to Spain and learn to cook, take advantage of the glorious cuisine and nail down my Spanish. I visited Valencia back in the summer of ’04 where I had the best restaurant experience at ‘Restaurante Torrijos’ Since I’ve been trying to get a job at the restaurant, but haven’t been able to even get a response. Valencia would be perfect because it has the nice mix of city and water life; of course because of the America’s Cup attraction.
denegras
14 Jun 07 at 9:57 pm
This cold houses you only find in the south of Spain (very few houses have central heating), as they are “prepared” for hot weather.
On very cold days, there is a saying here in the south of Spain that goes.. “it is cold even outside!”
which describes quite well Rod’s nightmare
leftbanker
14 Jun 07 at 11:02 pm
I feel your pain. Here is a bit of an essay I wrote back in the cruel 20 degree winter or 07 I survived here in Valencia:
Nanook of the North, Scott of the Antarctic, make room in the igloo for John of Valencia. An igloo sounds so warm and cozy right now, an igloo with a nice whale blubber fire burning in the hearth, or whatever the hell igloos have instead of a hearth. Whatever they have it’s more than what I have here with my parquet floors and no central heating.
I lived through that ordeal and swore that I wouldn’t complain about the heat here during the summer. I have kept my promise so far but it isn’t summer yet. I am going through 30 sfp sunscreen almost as quickly as cheap wine.
greytop
16 Jun 07 at 8:20 am
We had the same problem with our first town house. It had a wood fuelled fire that could burn logs faster than you could carry them home but we at least could heat one room well. Since then we have moved into a modern aprtment with air conditioning which both heats and cools – heaven! As they told me in the army – any damned fool can be uncomfortable
two worlds
17 Jun 07 at 7:15 pm
These stories I am reading are terrifying me. I will be moving to Andalusia, not sure where yet, to teach English for 8 months for the Spanish Dept of Ed. Coming from the Northeast U.S. where it is quite cold and damp in the winters, I was looking forward to a hiatus. Can anyone recommend a way of staying warm or the best kind of housing to look for so I don’t freeze?? How about the south side of a mountain? The heat doesn’t scare me but the cold does. Looking forward to Spain and a suitcase full of woolen sweaters and socks. And by the way, how many months does this cold last?
rod
17 Jun 07 at 8:56 pm
I wouldn’t worry too much, Two Worlds, my tale was meant to counter the idealised image of southern Spain as a place of eternal summer that British television property programmes tend to promote, and it was mainly about a particular type of property. In my case, the house was an old unmodernised picturesque one typical of those featured in such programmes, located as it was in a hilltop pueblo particularly exposed to the elements. When I moved to a flat in Sevilla around the end of January, it was perfectly fine, even if it didn’t have central heating.
). Central heating may not be usual in Andalusia, but if a place is well insulated it should be perfectly comfortable with other forms of heating.
Like Greytop suggests, it is better to go for the practicality of a new or modernised property rather than a place which appears to have lots of ‘character’ – like John of Valencia’s igloo with its parquet tiles
Regarding how long winter lasts I would say that winter lasts from mid-November to mid/late February.
And how cold you feel it is of course depends on what you’re used to. In Britain, or southern Britain at least, the winters have been so mild that I can’t remember the last prolonged cold spell, so my experience in Spain came as a bit of a shock, but for you it might be different.
Eight months being paid to work in Andalusia sounds great – I am sure you will have a fantastic time. If you don’t already, why not participate in our forum here.
Denegras – "it is cold even outside!â€. LOL – how do you say that in Spanish then?
Princess Banter – yes, despite my ‘nightmare’ I had an incredible time on my eight month break in Spain, and would recommend it to anyone.
pj
19 Jun 07 at 4:45 am
Two worlds, can you share info on your position? I am interested in finding something similar when the kids are in college… a year or two.
Denham Springs Sunrooms
28 Aug 09 at 1:38 am
Nice story, I enjoyed reading. That’s the real problem with moving to a hot country that you’re not used to, you expect it to be hot, but never realize just how hot it can be. When I moved to Spain 2 years ago for the first few weeks I had nothing but constant sunburn, thankfully my skin has gotten used to the sun now but I do still get burnt often.