Re: Snakes
 

Hello Clerigogirl and Ged

I do hope you don't mind me coming in on your post, it's just that OH and I were up in the Obido/Alcabaca area week before last, at the moment we are living Costa de la Luz in Spain but have decided that Portugal is really much more our cup of tea. We stayed in Sao Martinho and used this as our base for looking around, we had planned to go up as far as Coimbra but I had the flu and spent most of the first few days in bed. The aim of our trip was just fact finding and looking to see what area's were like and I have to say I have just feel in love with everything I saw, so much so we have come back to Spain and we are know giving the house a quick coat of paint to get it on the market. We are planning more trips as I really want to look at Coimbra and I expect we will rent for a while as I really want to make sure we get the house of our dreams, but of course so much depends on what happens here in Spain. I was so impressed with the quality of the builds and the size of the rooms in the house's we looked at. Oh well, I must not go on, but please do forgive me coming in on your private conversation, it's just you both sounded so committed to what you are doing and I wanted to share my visit with you.


I have been visiting the Portugese site for months now and this is the first time I have felt I could post.
regards
Crispygirl

Re: Snakes
 

Tomar is another poss.
Yep the brits will be everywhere,but at least I can make sure I wont be surrounded :)

Re: Snakes
 

Hiya Crispy
You can interrupt whenever you want!!! its hardly private is it?? T heeee
I must admit,I couldnt live in Spain,I love going over for trips,but thats as far as it goes.
Hope it doesnt take you as long as me to sell up :(
Good luck with your venture and keep us informed.
Did you get any useful websites etc for properties,if so I would like to have a look myself,Ive been on the most well known,but any ideas welcome.
Love Cleri x

Re: Snakes
 

Know the feeling;) We were considering moving to Spain until recently. We have friends and relatives in the Alicante area and that was a possibility as was the Mar Menor.

However, my wife in particular did not like the fact that it was impossible to go anywhere without encountering Little Britain - and often in the worst possible way (to paraphrase the late, great Kenny Everett).

Anyway, we decided on PT last November, came out to look around and found somewhere we liked. In December we went to visit friends in SP. When we got back I asked my wife if she had changed her mind (that being a woman's prerogative). "No way", was the reply.

So, there you are. We will soon be living in PT - although it would have been easier to learn Spanish than Portuguese:curse:

But what's all this got to do with snakes?

Re: Snakes
 

nothing at all,I just thought I would hijack Geds thread :)
He doesnt seem to be using it,and he wont mind :) :)
Where are you moving to???
Cx

Re: Snakes
 

Tavira - I did think the username might be a bit of a giveaway:D

Re: Snakes
 

Ha its early,I didnt look at it properly Doh!

Re: Snakes
 

I like Tavira alot,house prices seem to have shot up there,do you think there is a mass influx of brits?

Re: Snakes
 

Well, apart from us good guys, I hope not.

There is a website called Virtual Tourist and they had some quite uncomplimentary remarks to make about a couple of expat bars in Tavira. I think I shall have to steer clear of them.

(Whoops, I may have shot myself in the foot there - they aren't by any chance your locals are they?):thumbup:

Re: Snakes
 

Nooooooooooooooooooo the village of the damned is vale da telha Aljezur...way out west :)

Re: Snakes
 

I reckon most expats will stay in the south as they want the sun and the British bars etc, being in a remote or Portuguese only area aint for all so I think we are safe!! The north west of Spain seems to have escaped the British migration and Brits have been moving to Spain for the last 30 years!

Hmm...maybe my snake thread should be re-named?! And not even one mention of trouser snakes!!

Re: Snakes
 

I think you should keep looking....outside the tourist areas often houses are for sale for months/years, the truth is few Portuguese have over 150.000 to spend on a house so they tend to stay on the market for a while or often the sellers are too gready so they cant sell.(at least thats the case up here)

Re: Snakes
 

Trust you to lower the tone :) :)

Re: Snakes
 

Hi

We like it here in Spain and to be honest with you OH and I are the sort of people that could live anywhere, we tend to keep ourselves to ourselves and enjoy each others company, we could continue living here and be 80% happy but whilst we still have our health and energy then we should take advantage of it. This part of Spain is very much unlike the other Costa's it is still very old Spanish and not too many Brits here at the moment although we do have one or two Brit bars and shops but they are vastly out numbered by Spanish.

I expect you know more websites than me I have been looking at Square-metres.com, Centralportugal.com, Portugal4life.com, Imatico, Justtheland, Property-silvercoast.com and Cosmicvillas.co.uk. I have not however dealt with any of these, when we were up in Portugal we did go to see 3 or 4 houses but we were taken by the owner of the holiday accommodation that we used. He runs a free impartial independent property search agency and all his service's to us were completely free of charge and he gave us a whole day of taking us around the area offering as much info about places and showing us what we could get for our budget.
WWW..SerchOnSilvercoast.com[/url] is his website and I have to say that there was no pressure from him whats so ever we told him up front that we were not buying just looking he was such a helpful person and made you feel so at ease and really easy to talk to. It was only by chance that we came across him, I booked his holiday apartment through ownersdirect and whilst we were chatting it turned out he could help us in more ways than one.

Although we did see areas that we liked and house's we loved we know it is going to be a long drawn out process as it could take a good 18 months to sell this house and then we would have to rent some where whilst we find a house and get it ship shape so I am not even beginning to get excited about it. We did see one particular house we both liked and could see how it would work for us but we didn't even go in side and have a look as there was no point because I know I would get all up set if I feel in love with it and then someone else bought it. So we are just going to wait and if it is still available when we are ready then that will be fate and we will go and have a look.

Any news on you selling your place yet?

Take care
Crispygirl

Re: Snakes
 

We live in the Tomar area and although there has been a few brits and other nationalities moving here its very much still the minority, Tomar area is a great place to live, gets busy in the summer with tourist mostly Portuguese though:)