Posted: Thu Dec 8, 2022 9:22am
If you are thinking of living in a Spanish coastal town you should always visit a few times during the year. A lot of the Spanish have holiday homes in Guardamar so the population increases tenfold in Augusti. As is the case with all places close to the beach traffic and parking in particular can be horrendous.
Guardamar is your typical Spanish town and I would guess that about 90% of the residents are Spanish. Therefore people are out at work during the day, so although you still get visitors to the beach area during the day, the town is quiet. Again with a mainly Spanish population the restaurants open to suit the Spanish, and as they eat much later, that’s why they open later.
I live in a urbanisation in the campo area of Guardamar (5 minutes drive from the beach) and things couldn’t be more different. The residents are probably 90% non Spanish ( from U.K., Belgium, Netherlands etc) so you’ll find lots more people are out and about so they tend to eat out during the day. During winter the bars move their entertainment to daylight hours, for instance an 8pm quiz or singer in the summer will be at 3pm in the winter. Most of us are here for the warmth and the sunshine, so when the temperature drops in the winter, we tend to hibernate at home hidden in our thermals, blankets and in front of log burners. Bars restaurants tend to close when they’re down to their last customers around 9pm.
If we want to eat after 9pm in the winter months we travel into Guardamar.
As you’re planning on visiting over the Christmas/New Year period, the Spanish celebrate this period with families, so Guardamar is probably at its most peaceful during this period.
But that again is part of its charm as is the charm of the all night parties in the summer months, which is why it’s a beautiful place to live. That’s not even mentioning the beaches, the parks, the museums, the castle and all the fantastic events organised by the town hall.
Lynn