Almerimar and Almeria

Darsena 1, Puerto Almerimar

It didn't take us long to get to know our new winter base of Puerto Almerimar. The marina has everything you might need. The supermarket is a few minutes walk away and a plethora of cafes, bars, restaurants and the ever important boat chandleries were on our doorstep. Everyone speaks English and even the local bars serve English style tapas! We were soon making use of the various services as the fridge abruptly gave up the ghost and within minutes a contractor bicycled to our boat and fitted a new digital thermostat. We managed to find a local canvas worker and arranged for a new spray hood to be made as well as a new dinghy bag.

Puerto Almerimar

Almeria marina and The English Pier

With a few jobs done and everything stored away we went back to the UK for a few weeks and returned to Spain in October. Instead of rushing back to the boat from Almeria airport we decided to stay in the city for a couple of days for a spot of sight seeing. We booked into the large Gran Hotel Almeria which was offering a great deal. It was the first four-star hotel in the city and has been hosting the stars of the Spaghetti Westerns to the more recent Spielberg movies since 1967. Photos of Sophia Loren, Clint Eastwood, Brigitte Bardot, Raquel Welch, Harrison Ford and many more adorn the walls. It is located in the southern part of the city and close to the port area which we hadn't explored before.

Almeria Holocaust memorial

Almeria Holocaust memorial

We had a look round the marina but unfortunately it doesn't welcome visiting yachts as it's already pretty full with local boats. Next to the marina lay a rather moving holocaust memorial to 142 Almerian jews who died at Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria. The central statue depicts a staircase of death and is surrounded by 142 stone columns representing those that died.

El Cable Ingles (the English Pier)

El Cable Ingles (the English Pier)

We couldn't miss the El Cable Inglés (the English Pier), a 1000 metre iron railway pier which towered above us. It is also known as El Alquife and is an extraordinary piece of industrial heritage. The pier was originally the loading bay for the mines in Alquife (Granada) which produced iron ore, copper and silver. The railway was used until 1973 to transport the minerals by train and then onto the pier to waiting cargo ships. Despite over 100 years of constant exposure to the corroding effects of saltwater it has survived and is testament to the quality of construction by Scottish engineers in 1904.

El Cable Ingles (the English Pier) and Almeria marina

Spanish galleons moored in the port

We wandered into the port area but unfortunately the two Spanish galleon replicas that were moored alongside were closed to the public until the following week. The port afforded great views back to the City and the Alcazabar perched on the hillside above Almeria. We enjoyed some retail therapy during our last afternoon as the main high street has a good selection of shops and worked out our route to the station for our early bus on to Almerimar the following morning.

Almeria city view from the port

Almeria port

Motor homes as well as yachts flock to Puerto Almerimar

Back on the boat we immersed ourselves back into life in Almerimar. I joined the weekly coffee mornings and started Thai Chi classes. Not that dissimilar to our life in Marmaris with an array of clubs and classes to join. We were meeting lots of new faces but it was great to bump into old friends too. It was lovely to catch up with a couple we had first met in Turkey as well as people who recognised the boat from Tim's sailing school days in West Wales over 20 years ago! We also made use of our few weeks back on the boat to get on with the many overdue jobs but  despite our constant chasing unfortunately the spray hood and dinghy bag never materialised. Annoyingly they would have to wait until we returned to the boat next Spring...

Puerto Almerimar