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The information presented on this page is based upon personal experience and the experiences of our friends. We hope you will find it useful. If you would like to contribute or correct or update us please send an email.
_____________________________________________________________________________ Living Here - Table Of Contents
_____________________________________________________________________________ Unlike the Costa del Sol , Las Alpujarras is a region where a little Spanish will really help when tackling the basic challenges of life - ordering a loaf of bread or explaining to your neighbour that you have locked yourself out of your house. Of course the level of Spanish required will be dependent on your expertise at charades and non-verbal communication. Many foreigners happily get by with phrase book Spanish, but in truth the real Spanish experience only comes to those who get stuck in and have a go at learning the language.
In our opinion the best results come from a multi-strand approach to learning. By this we mean a combination of audio materials ( and we think the best is Michel Thomas ), books, social interaction, and possibly language schools.
We can recommend the Castila language school in Granada from personal experience. We found however that the "'throw-them-in-at-the-deep-end'' approach with no English spoken was less effective for absolute beginners than for those with a basic Spanish vocabulary ( colours, simple phrases, numbers etc. ).
At Castila the teachers were enthusiastic, experienced and of course the location of the school in an old Carmen in the Albacin district of Granada definitely added to the enjoyment.
The following books are also highly recommended :
Essential Spanish in 1 Minute
Pronunciation :
Thank you = Gracias Please = Por Favor Si = Yes No = No ____________________________________________________________________________
2. Cheap Telephone Calls between Spain and the UK If you are making a significant number of international calls between the UK and Spain we can recommend 2 companies who between them can save you and your family back in the UK a fortune ( well a few quid anyway depending on how often you call your Mum ). From the UK we recommend callers use a call consolidator such as Just Dial who reduce the international call rate to Spain as follows :
Weekdays - same price as a national call Weekends - 5p per minute5 To a Spanish mobile - 25p per minute anytime
All that is required is that you have a BT line and you first dial a prefix number to route the call via Just Dial. All calls will appear on your normal BT bill. We estimate that you can save at least 50% on calls from the UK to Spain this way.
From Spain we recommend the use of Dial Direct Telecom. Again once you have signed up with them, which you can do online or by post, you simply add the prefix 1051 to your international calls and the savings are enormous. At the moment calls to the UK at anytime are just 0.06 centimos per minute including IVA, so you can get a 1/2 hour telephone call for €1.80. ___________________________________________________________________________ All modern mobile phones purchased in the UK will work in Spain. Your UK phone contains a small chip called a SIMM card which identifies the number associated with your phone. Your SIM will either be configured by your network operator as Pay-As-You-Go or a contract SIMM ( usually billed monthly ). Both types of phone will work in Spain although you may have to ask your network operator to allow international roaming. Just phone customer services and explain that you wish to use the phone abroad. Enabling international roaming can take a couple of days so it is wise to do this prior to departing for Spain .
Unfortunately the UK network operators tend to make astronomical charges for making mobile calls whilst abroad ( particularly if you are calling the UK from Spain ). One solution to this if you are a regular traveller to Spain is to buy a Spanish Pay-As-You-Go SIMM for as little as €40, which usually includes a €40 credit. You can then insert the Spanish SIM card into your phone and make calls at local prices which are significantly cheaper. One word of caution - some mobile phones sold with a SIM in the UK are locked into a particular network operator, Vodafone for instance, and will not accept a SIM card from an alternative operator such as Movistar in Spain. There are many small independent mobile telephone shops in the UK who can usually unlock your phone for a small charge - usually between £10 and £15. Although your phone can be unlocked in Spain we recommend doing it in England as some popular phones in England are virtually unknown in Spain and it can be difficult to find a shop with the tools to unlock them. If you are unsure whether your phone is locked the simplest way to tell is to borrow a SIM card from a friend whose SIM uses a different network ( if you have a Vodafone SIM try an Orange SIM for example ). If it works in your phone it proves it is unlocked. ___________________________________________________________________________ 4. Getting a Telephone Connection The near monopoly on the telephone infrastructure in Spain is held by Telefónica, although in recent years deregulation has allowed other operators to provide services using the Telefónica infrastructure. If your house is located within the town boundaries it is likely that you will have no problem getting a standard land line installed. In fact this can often be accomplished in days. Occasionally we hear of villages where the telephone exchange has reached capacity and people are told that they will have to wait until someone dies ! Fortunately however, this is the exception rather than the rule. Telefonica offer a range of good quality phones for rent with the line, and the facilities offered ( answering services, text messaging etc. ) are actually more sophisticated than those available as standard in the UK.
Once you have a telephone line installed you will have to pay a quarterly rental charge, covering the line and phone ( if applicable ). All your calls will be routed by Telefonica and detailed on a regular itemised bill. If you make a lot of international, long distance, or mobile calls it pays to either buy a pre-paid phone card available in most tobacconists ( estanco ), or sign up with a call consolidator such as Direct Dial Telecom. It is more than possible to reduce your phone bills by a factor of 5 in this way. _______________________________________________________________________________________ 5. Getting Internet Connectivity Listed below are all the practical, and slightly impractical, ways we know of to get Internet connectivity in the Alpujarras.
Internet Cafes No installation costs, no monthly charges and usually fast and trouble free. There are Internet cafes in Cadíar, Ugíjar and Orgíva. Most charge between €2 and €3 Euros per hour. Some will let you plug in your laptop to their Internet connections if you ask nicely.
Mobile Phone Excrutiatingly slow and ridiculously expensive. To be avoided !
Standard Land Line The simplest but slowest ( excepting access via mobile phone ) way to access the Internet is to use your standard land line. In this scenario you can sign up for a "Pay-as-you-Go" style account where you are charged via your phone bill per minute of connection time, or you can sign up for a fixed rate package, generally called a "Tarifa Plana" or flat plan. In our experience Wanadoo almost always offer better value than Telefónica for fixed rate plans. As an example at the time of writing Wanadoo are offering unlimited access between midnight and 8pm weekdays and unlimited access at weekends for about €12 per month. In order to apply for a flat plan you will have to provide details of a Spanish bank account from which your monthly payments will be debited.
RDSI ( a.k.a. ISDN ) For a marginal improvement on using your land line for Internet access it is possible to order an RDSI connection from Telefónica ( know as ISDN in the rest of Europe ). This is a digital connection which offers a phone line combined with an Internet connection, both available simultaneously. The Internet connection is faster by about 25% than a standard land line connection and call setup times are almost instantaneous, however in general it is hard to justify the high cost of an RDSI line at about €30 per month given the limited improvement offered over access via a standard land line.
ADSL The best value Internet connection packages are those offered by companies who provide ADSL connections. These are high speed digital connections ( speeds vary from about 5 times the speed of a standard land line to about 20 times depending on the package selected ). An ADSL connection combines a phone line with an Internet connection and is definitely the Rolls Royce of Internet connectivity. Prices for ADSL packages vary but typically expect to pay between €30 and €40 per month, plus the cost of your voice calls. Have a look at Wanadoo ADSL Packages to see some sample packages. Unfortunately Telefónica has decided that is is only worth upgrading the telephone exchanges to support ADSL where the population served is above a certain threshhold, and many of the villages in the Alpujarras do not meet the criteria. At the moment the telephone exchanges in Orgiva, Ugíjar and Cadíar are definitely enabled, so if your pueblo is attached to either of these exchanges you should be fine. If not .... read on.
AVIRed Recently the Junta de Andalucia has engaged with a 3rd party company called Iberbanda and have installed a network of transmitters through rural Andalucía with the specific intention of providing broadband Internet access to villages and areas where Telefónica is not providing ADSL. The network is branded AVI or Alta Velocidad en Internet. They are using a system called LMDS which requires line of sight between a small transmitter/receiver installed at your house and one of their transmitters, which are normally installed on vantage points such as the top of Sierra de Gador. From €39 per month it is possible to get a relatively high speed Internet connection even if your house isn't connected to the standard telephone network. For a few Euros more they also offer a telephone service using the same connection. For a list of villages in the Alpujarras covered by the AVI transmitters have a look at AVI Coverage. If you don't see the name your village don't assume you can't be connected, you may simply be their first customer.
OpenSKY The final method for getting Internet access in rural Andalucía that we are aware of is the use of a Satellite connection. OpenSKY and their resellers ( try Europe Online ) offer a broadband Internet service which uses a satellite dish to download data, but must be combined with a standard telephone line connection for upload. In other words your requests for web pages, emails etc. from the Internet are sent by your slow land line connection ( as far as we can see there is no reason why the service couldn't work with a mobile phone connection for upload ), but the responses are received via a high speed satellite link. Because most people accessing the Internet tend to receive considerably more data than they send, the experience of Internet access with OpenSky feels like a high speed broadband connection. The technology involved is complex, and the services offered more sophisticated than simple Internet access. Packages cost from about €300 for the first year to include all the necessary hardware, including a satellite dish. Second year price is around €190. ___________________________________________________________________________ Despite popular misconceptions driving in Spain is usually a painless experience, and in sunny Andalucía the Spanish definitely fail to live up to their reputation on the roads. Over recent years much E.E.C. money has been spent on improving the Spanish road network, particularly the network of motorways and main roads, and travel times between major cities are now much reduced.
In order to drive a vehicle in Spain the law states that you must carry the following :
If you are stopped by the Guardia Civil, the arm of the Spanish police force responsible for traffic control on the highways, they have the power to levy fines ( multas ) for a variety of infractions, including not carrying the appropriate warning triangles etc. The guardia may levy on the spot fines if you cannot prove that you are a Spanish resident or if your car is not-Spanish registered.
Driving a non-Spanish Car in Spain
What are the problems ?
There are 3 main challenges to those wishing to keep a foreign registered vehicle on the Spanish roads :
One solution adopted by many foreigners in Spain is to undertake a voluntary ITV test ( I.T.V. Voluntaria ), the Spanish equivalent the the UK MOT, and then use a Spanish based company such as Knight Insurance www.knight-insurance.com who will insure vehicles that meet this criteria. Unfortunately this still doesn't resolve the issue of the vehicle being driven for more than 6 months of the year, but this doesn't deter a significant number of newly arrived residents from adopting this approach.
Importing a British Car Car importation can be a complex and bureaucratic nightmare, and is best avoided if you are able and willing to buy a car in Spain . The rules change with alarming frequency and costs are very difficult to pin down. However in most cases it is possible. For a British registered car the first step is to inform the DVLA in the UK that you are exporting the vehicle. They will send you a document confirming the vehicle export request. We would then recommend passing your documents to a gestor ( a Spanish professional specialising in administration ) who should be able to guide you through the maze of forms necessary to complete the importation. Note that part of the process will involve passing a Spanish ITV test, and it may be necessary to have the vehicle modified, typically the headlights on a right hand drive vehicle, to meet Spanish regulations. __________________________________________________________________________ There are numerous companies and individuals who will happily ship your possessions from the UK to Southern Spain . The problem is distinguishing between them. Most companies will charge between £3000 and £4000 for shipping the contents of an average house ( usually between 30 and 40 cubic metres ). The price will vary depending upon who is packing up the stuff in the UK , the insurance cover, and exactly where you are in Spain . Many companies will deliver to "tarmac only", a problem in many Alpujarreñan cortijos.
The top 5 pieces of advice are :
________________________________________________________________________________ 8. Opening a Spanish Bank Account If you plan to spend a considerable amount of time in Spain or buy a property here it is highly likely that you will need a bank account. Although we do still occasionally here stories of people driving over from the UK with tens of thousands of pounds in their car it is a very risky undertaking as customs will probably take a very dim view of should they find the cash at the border. Strip search anyone ?
The good news is that opening a bank account here is usually a simple process. To open a non-resident account you will need a form of identification such as your passport, proof of your permanent address, and a small sum of money ( usually about 10 euros ). To open a residents account you will need proof of your address in Spain, your residencia, and some cash. Of course as with all rules in Spain there may be some flexibility and variation in the documentation required. Make sure you check first if it is important to open the account in one visit. _______________________________________________________________________________ 9. Transferring Money to Spain Assuming you are considering moving to Spain or purchasing a property here, at some point you will undoubtedly need to transfer a substantial sum from the UK to an account here. It is perfectly possible to arrange this kind of transfer using one of the high street banks with whom you probably have an account ( Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland etc. ) however their exchange rates and commissions are significantly less favourable than those offered by specialist foreign exchange brokers. There are a number of companies who specialise in offering wholesale market rates to individuals and companies. Typically you will only be quoted a specific rate when you have indicated the sum you wish to transfer, and the broker has identified a purchaser for your currency. The quote is only likely to be valid for a matter of minutes.
We recommend the services of Foreign Currency Direct from personal experience. All our Sterling to Euro transactions at FCD are managed by Tom Holian, who has provided personal guarantees that customers of Blue Sky Escapes will receive a 5 star service. In our experience transactions arranged through FCD are always at the most competitive rates, and the service is fast and efficient. We estimate that typical savings with FCD over high street bank transactions are in the region of 1%, or £1000 saved for every £100,000 transferred. To start the simple customer sign up process just call Tom on 0800 328 5884 from within the UK or +44 1494 725 353 if you are already abroad, or create an account via the FCD website by clicking on the link below.
When you are transferring monies to Spain to complete your house purchase you are likely to encounter a couple of pieces of terminology that can be confusing. The most likely mechanism your bank or broker will use to transfer money is called a SWIFT transfer. SWIFT is simply a secured mechanism for making international money transfers. You will probably be asked for the SWIFT code or address of the destination bank. This is an 8 character code and your Spanish bank should be able to provide you with it ( it will start with the characters "ES" ). Sometimes the SWIFT code is known as a BIC ( "Bank Identifier Code" ). You will also need the IBAN ( "International Bank Account Number" ) of your Spanish account. This will be a series of letters and numbers of up to 34 characters, starting with the letters "ES" in the case of Spain, and ending in your sort code and account number. Again your Spanish bank should be able to tell you the IBAN number of your account, and in many cases it will now be printed on your statements and other bank correspondence. ___________________________________________________________________________ According to authoritative sources it is not strictly necessary to make a will ( testamento ) in Spain to ensure your assets are disposed of as you wish. A will made in your home country SHOULD also apply to any assets in Spain however many foreigners are surprised to find that Spanish law dictates that 2/3 of an estate must automatically pass to any surviving children, and only the remaining 1/3 is available to be disposed of as a Spaniard wishes. This is called the law of obligatory heirs. If there are no children, no marriage and no will, there is a danger that the entire estate will pass to the state !. We therefore strongly advise that you make a separate will in Spain covering your assets here, just to make absolutely certain that your estate isn't swallowed up by the Spanish state and doesn't become entangled in complex legal battles. This simple step which will cost about €100-€200 could save your heirs a fortune, and an awful lot of expensive legal work. ____________________________________________________________________________
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