Morning, San Pedro Playa

 

Sunday morning in September. I was thinking as I walked the dog down the paseo this morning to collect the car we parked last night when we went for dinner, this is an amazing time of the year on the Costa. The temperature has dropped those few degrees both during the day and at night, we've gone from July and August of 40C, of which we had a lot this year to the mid to low 30s, with the odd days of high 30s.

For those of us that live and work here it is a bit of a welcome relief, the tourists all go it is wonderful high 30s low 40s, but you don't actually have to work in it! They go you have a/c, we do, but like everyone else the rising electricity prices means everyone is very careful how often they use it and frankly we are more used to weather as we live here, so our need is less. People who work outdoors in Spain such as builders tend to start really early in the summer (often before sunrise) and finish early as well because of the heat, this has wrongly lead to the perception that people are lazy here, they are not they just maximise working time based on the climate.

The Spanish govt passed a law recently imposing restrictions on the use of a/c in public buildings such as restaurants and shopping centres. It has definitely caused controversy but the logic is essentially sound, why air condition a shop and leave the door open? The law has a winter element as well where the reverse logic applies you can't heat the street.

High 30s low 40s is great for the tourists and a lot of the economy relies on it, but it is nice when after the madness of July and August a little calm returns, walking down the paseo is not like walking thru Leicester Square in London, the other things you notice is the traffic the A7 to the west of Marbella from where the A7 and AP-7 split to the San Pedro tunnel is a known bottleneck (although the funding is approved to solve the problem, not sure exactly where they'll build any road expansion) to the point in the peak season it back up all the way to the Nagueles tunnel. Then of course parking at La Canada the out of town shopping centre north of the AP-7 as it goes round Marbella, yesterday I went up to goto Leroy Merlin and I could actually park, I've always wondered why people who come for the summer to the Costa actually want to spend there time in a shopping centre 🤔.

The view across the Med on a morning like this is beautiful, and as the temperature drops the view at night improves, at dinner last night and you could see across to Africa and down to Gib.

Sleeping at this time of year becomes easier, there is also a gentle on shore breeze from the Med, for me riding my bike on one of those crazy over 100km, several 1000m in a day rides we do every weekend becomes a little more pleasant, by early afternoon your still cycling in the heat of the day, but it is the right side of 40 for that kind of thing.

Then of course the temperature continues to drop and by Christmas we'll all have coats on walking down the paseo, it never gets below 8 or 9C at night here even in Janaury. It is funny walking along the paseo in November where tourists come for winter sun in shorts and t-shirts with the locals in jeans and jumper.

Other things change at this time of year The Starlite Festival which runs every summer up in the open air arena in Nagueles comes to an end, the opening hours of shops will change at the end of September (the Andalucian govt allows the likes of La Canada to open during tourist seasons on a Sunday, although the smaller shops are allowed to open all year on a Sunday), some restaurants and bars will close for a period of time and then open again maybe in November and over the Christmas break.

There is still am amazing amount of things to do on the Costa and across Andalucia out of beach time, Andalucia itself is bigger than Scotland and Wales combined with a population of some 12 million people, I can drive for nearly 3 hours from my house on the autopista before I across out of Andalucia (excluding of course crossing into Gib).