Náquera

Location: Southern edge of Sierra Calderona mountain range north of Valencia city
Distance from city: 25 minutes
Distance from beach: 20 minutes
Public transportation: Bus from town to Betera Metro (approx. 20 minutes)
Family Friendly: Very
Need a car: Yes, if you are not living in town and close to the bus route that goes to the Betera metro stop.
Something special: Hiking from your house and lots of horse stables.

What we love about Náquera

Náquera is a gorgeous town that has some of the most breathtaking views of the mountains, the mediterranean and the city. Located on the southern edge of the Sierra Calderona mountains, it is one of the closest mountain towns to the city. Historically it was, and still is, a popular summer spot for those wishing to escape the heat of the city, as Náquera boasts a cooler climate in the summer when a nice breeze comes off the mediterranean. It is becoming popular now as a year-round home for those that enjoy an active outdoor lifestyle (it’s a biking and hiking heaven), spectacular views and a more immersive Spanish experience.

From Náquera you’ll be about 20-25 minutes drive from many of the international schools. There are plenty of restaurants sprinkled around the town, including the famous El Pastoret that offers baguette long sandwiches – so come hungry!

Náquera has a downtown area with apartments and townhome, and some homes around the edge of town. There are several urbanizations surrounding the town that offer quieter communities to live in, some are directly on the bus line to Betera and the metro, for others you’ll need a car.

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Urbanizations

If you would like to live on the outskirts of the city or in the countryside, in a house with a garden and pool, but not a farmhouse, you’ll probably be looking at urbanizations. Some urbanizations also have apartment buildings and townhomes, others are only chalets/casas.

Self-contained Urbanizations

Urbanizations that are self-contained usually only have one or two entrances to the area. They are similar to an American gated (or non-gated) community where a whole community was built during a short timeframe and therefore all the fibre network, electricity and water was put in at the same time, so houses in urbanizations are fully equipped unlike what one might find with a stand-alone farm house [link to farm houses]. It is possible with the older urbanizations that you might still have a septic tank for your house, but you would now have access to convert to the public sewage that would have since been added to the urbanization.

Town Urbanizations

Some urbanizations are blended with the town they are in and really only delineate an area of the town that was built at one time. They are less likely to have facilities as they are usually within walking or biking distance to the towns facilities.

Facilities

Urbanizations can have an array of facilities, or none.

  • Their own security company on site
  • A few are gated (this is more rare)
  • A public, outdoor kids play area with a concrete football area is pretty common
  • Tennis courts
  • Restaurant
  • Full club with restaurant, tennis, rec area, pool
  • Central mail area
  • Central recycling area

Examples

Alfinach/Monastarios in Puzol: This is technically two urbanizations but they appear as one if you’re driving around it. While the urbanization is not gated, it does have a private security company on site. There is a club in each section, each with it’s own restaurant, pools, tennis courts, padel courts, kids playground and more. In Monasterios is it required to have a membership at their club if you live there, that is not the case in Alfinach.

San Miguel in Naquera: Restaurant, tennis courts, kids playground and football area.

Torre en Conill in Betera: this urbanization is built around the Club de Golf Escorpión – there are apartments, townhomes and houses along with many restaurants and of course, the golf course!

Don’t forget to ask about the monthly urbanization fees, because they are different in each urbanization and some even don’t have them.

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Guide to Spanish Shops, Where to Get Stuff!

When you first arrive you will probably need a lot of things, if you’ve shipped your belongings you’ll need to go shopping while you wait for them, and even when you get them, you’ll still need stuff! It takes time to learn new shopping habits and the array of new brands, trying to figure out what is sold everywhere, so here is our cheat sheet of chain stores that you’ll find all over. You will have lots of independently owned shops in your new neighborhood that you’ll want to explore too!

Leroy Merlin/Bauhaus

Big box hardware – they have all the departments with small and large items in all of them: paint, garden, hardware, bath, kitchen etc. They also rent equipment and have the departments to design and renovate your kitchen/bathroom too.

MediaMarkt

All things electronic basically, from washing machines to hair dryers. Plus some basics like batteries and headphones.

Norauto

All things car. They will fix your car too if you don’t have a better local place (you can make appointments online if you need to), and they have a large shop for car liquids and parts.  

Decathlon

If you have kids and/or love sports, you will live here. What we love about it is they always have very well priced items for kid’s sports equipment and clothes (you’ve been there, you want a cheap buy-in because you don’t know if it’ll stick, probably won’t!). However, they also sell the serious stuff, and some great sports clothes and swimware.

IKEA

I don’t think we need to explain this, just stating we have one!

El Corte Ingles

Department store: El Corte Ingles offers everything you’d expect as well as having a grocery store.

Chinese stores

They are on almost every street, and even smaller pueblos will have at least one. Often called Chinos, Bazar China or some version of those names with another. They are like variety stores, they sell every little thing you might need from pens, paper, plant pots, small amount of hardware items like small tools, lightbulbs, plates, kitchen utensils, pet supplies (not food) etc. They are a great place for cheap items that you are not concerned about the quality.

Grocery stores

The main grocery stores here are Mercadona, Consum, Masymas, Lidl and Aldi– you will have one of these, at least, close to you.

More than a Grocery Store

Carrefour and Al Campo are stores that offer a supermarket, but also clothes and other things like hardware and home goods.

Tedi

A step up from the Chinese stores, it’s still cheap things like bathroom accessories to craft goods and seasonal décor, but it’s slightly better designed. If you’ve got small kids it’ll be your favorite place, great for paper, pens, stickers, craft supplies.

Casa

A small home goods store, great for little things like table cloths, decorative pillows, glasses, plates and such. There are many great stores for homegoods, this is a good place to start.

Shopping malls

Bonaire: Located just west of the city it is one of the largest shopping centers in Spain in a nice open air environment. It has 120 stores/restaurants  (including Sophora, Primark, H&M, Natura, Rituals, Singularu, Mr. Wonderful, Zara, Starbucks…) as well as an Al Campo, a movie theatre, bowling alley and an adventure space.

Aqua: Located in the city near the Arts and Sciences, Aqua is a smaller mall, but still has everything you need for happy shopping (Singularu, Starbucks, Zara, Druni, Flying Tiger, Natura…) and is open air.

El Saler: On the other side of the Arts and Sciences, this is a more classic, large and enclosed mall (not open air). They have lots of shops including Zara, Foot Locker, Claires, H&M, Mango, Miniso, Natura…

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Country Living in Spain, What to Expect

If you enjoy a rural lifestyle, there is nothing better than the Spanish countryside! Finding a house in the orange groves, or with an acreage of orange, almond, avocado, pomegranate, lemon trees can be a real dream!  Around the Valencia area we have beautiful mountains, farms and the coastline, so you can find rural houses with amazing views while still being quite close to the city. To help you find the perfect home there are several things you will want to consider so we can look for houses based on your needs and how off-grid you want to be.

Consider the following facts about houses in the countryside or casa rustica

Water

It’s quite common for rural houses to not be on a water line, this can mean one or both of the following:

A: you will have a septic tank, which are common in most countries, but in Spain we have seen them not only in the typical rural areas, but also sometimes in urbanizations. If you have a septic tank in an urbanization it is likely you will have the option to connect to the sewage line that was put in after the houses were built. In rural areas it is unlikely there is a sewage line to connect to,

B: It’s common to have a septic tank but still have water coming to your house, however many rural houses will also not be connected to incoming water, this means you will need to have water delivered to your tank. This is a very manageable system, but it does mean you will want to be knowledgeable about maintaining a clean water tank too.

Wifi

Most likely you will not have wifi, but no need to worry, there are companies like Starlink that offer a satellite connection. So it’s much easier these days to stay connected anywhere.

Heating/AC

If the house is older and still in it’s original condition it is unlikely you will have either. In this area of Spain the weather was pretty temperate historically. If it has already been renovated you might get both! Because of this (and many other reasons!) there will be a large price difference between a fixer upper and a renovated farm house – so thinking about how much renovation you want to do if you’re in the market for a rural farm house is an important decision.

Roads

Some areas have better roads leading to houses than others. If you are staying/working at home, you might not be coming and going daily and therefore find a short dirt road to your home is not a big deal. Also some dirt roads are better than others! It is possible to find rural houses that have good roads all the way to the house, so evaluating this is also an important factor.

Getting mail and packages

Many rural homes do not have usable addresses (Spanish address philosophy is a whole other article!), it is ok, your house does exist, it’s just maybe not so mail friendly, and you will be using Google pins a lot to get friends to your house! The good news is that once you have lived somewhere for some time and the couriers get to know you, it will get easier. Additionally, all couriers and Correos will hold packages for you to pick up, sometimes they have agreements with a local business to drop them there, so don’t be surprised if you’re asked to pick up your package at a local bar like we were when we first moved! While this may be an adjustment, it does work. (see our article about getting packages in Spain). If you live off grid or are having issues with your address, you may also want to consider making an agreement with a local business and skip the ‘where is my package’ game altogether.

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El Puig de Santa Maria

Location: Just north of Valencia city
Distance from city: 20 minutes
Distance from beach: 10 minutes
Public transportation: Bus and train from town
Family Friendly: Yes
Need a car: No
Something special: Sounded by orange fields

What we love about El Puig

El Puig (pronounced el pooch) is a very quaint town just north of Valencia. Unlike a lot of the suburbs of Valencia blend into each other, El Puig is a stand-alone town surrounded by orange fields. The whole town is walkable with plenty of restaurants, ice-creams shops and a very nice rec center. El Puig is a very well kept town in general.

The beach part of El Puig is separated by the V21 autovia and a commerical area from the main town, but is also a very nice area with a gorgeous beach and restaurants, so while it is possible to walk the farm roads to the beach, it’s not super accessible and a car works better. 

The center of town features the spectacular Monastery of Santa Maria which was built in 1588, their farmers market and many town activities take place in the square in front of the monastery.

El Puig became a symbolic location for Valencians when it was conquered by James I of Aragon in 1237 at the Battle of the Puig where the Moors were defeated.

El Puig features a combination of apartments, townhomes and houses.

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Gilet

Location: Northern edge of Sierra Calderona mountain range north of Valencia city
Distance from city: 30 minutes
Distance from beach: 20 minutes
Public transportation: Bus and train from town
Family Friendly: Yes
Need a car: Yes, you could rely on a bus, but a car would definitely make things easier
Something special: Mountain living in an active town

What we love about Gilet:

Built on the north edge of the mountains with a typical Spanish town center, it has easy access to hiking in the Sierra Calderona mountains, a an avid bicycling town and good transportation to Valencia and Sagunto. All of this and more have led to spectacular population growth in recent years and significant urban development. It’s easy to see why the population has tripled in size since 2000. There are many lovely houses in the hills that have gorgeous views of the Sierra Calderona and the town has smaller townhomes and apartments.

It is a wonderful suburb for families too, with a new skate park, public swimming pool, easy access to public transportation and many festivities throughout the year. The public library is housed in the historic The Gilet Tower which dates back to 1580.

As with the other mountain towns it offers an abundance of biking opportunities, whether you are a road or off-road bicyclist.

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Receiving Packages in Spain

Receiving packages in Spain was a new experience for us, the system works very similarly to other countries, but just different enough in it’s nuances that you might want to read on so you can get ahead of the game!

Delivery options:

  • Correos (the post office) will deliver packages sent via Correos or a post office in another country.
  • Courier service – if you order things online, it will likely come via a courier like Seur
  • Overnight/fast delivery like DHL

Correos

Like you’re probably used to in your country, a package sent to your address, generally gets delivered to your address (see farmhouse article about houses with address issues). In the US for example most people have pretty large mailboxes or porches that can accept most regular packages, or a communal place or larger locked mailboxes for packages in an apartment. The main issue we’ve come up against in Spain is there are no allowances like this for packages bigger than a small mailbox, and they’ll need your NIE to leave it, so it means the person delivering has to find you. As you can imagine this leads to logistical problems.

With Correos if you are home when they do their deliveries, they will generally knock on your door/gate. We live outside the city in an urbanization where there is an area with communal mailboxes where all our regular mail goes, the postwoman will come to our house too and try to find us if we have a package. If you are not home, you will get a form in your mailbox and you can take that to pick up your package the next day from the Correos office. This works quite well and efficient from our experience. If there are any fees related to your package (custom fees) you will have to pay in cash if it’s at your house, they do not (yet) carry a cc machine).

Courier services and overnight services like DHL

Courier services are a whole other can of worms! Rest assured you WILL get the package, but how you get it can often be a wonderfully entertaining game of cat and mouse! In our experience most courier services prefer to NOT deliver your package when you first move in, and prefer to have you pick it up instead.

STEP 1: They WILL call you first to see if you are home, if you do not pick up that call, then you will automatically move onto step 2. If you do pick up, and get a person and tell them you’re home, they will 99% of the time then swing by with the package. When we first moved to our house in the mountains I would get a call and then no-one would be on the other end, then I’d get a ‘no-one home’ notice, clearly they had no interest in coming to our house at all – move to step-2 in this instance too, because they didn’t want to deliver it anyway! Often in our apartment, where we lived on the 3rd floor, I would let the person in remotely and they would put the package in the elevator and send the elevator up, no person! Hey it worked!

We have found once we had lived at our house for some time and received a bunch of deliveries it got WAY easier, now all the couriers that deliver around us know we are home and we also have a little spot they can leave packages safely so often they don’t even call us anymore, we just get a ‘delivered’ text. If you do have a house and can figure out a spot to have them leave your packages, that’s ideal.

STEP 2: So what happened to your package? Don’t worry, with all the fun and games we’ve gone through, we’ve never lost a package!
Couriers services have pick-up points that will be pretty close to where you live, we have to usually go to the next town (because our town is small) but once you’ve been there you know where to go and things get easier. Another pick up location will be a local business, most courier services have drop off points, unofficial I imagine, with local restaurants or shops, so I’ve picked up packages in our local pizza place and a local almuerzo restaurant in our little village. They will text you where to go so you know what to do, it’s just not coming to your house anymore.
DHL is a little different as they have to leave it at a DHL point, so you will get notifications with a link before it’s even out for delivery and you can go onto their website and choose a pick up location if you’d prefer this. If it’s a failed delivery they’ll text you where to go. Also you can call (and speak to someone in English if you need to) to find out where your package is and organize a pick-up point convenient for you.

All’s well that ends well!

The more packages you get delivered the easier it gets, and overall remember, it does work! I recommend if you are not able to communicate in Spanish learn “I am home”/ “Estoy en casa” or some simple phrase you can say when they call so that they come to your house. After a while they’ll get used to your address and you’ll get used to the process in your area.

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