Nerja - from fishing village to prestige holiday resort

I walked to town and back this morning using a different route through the back streets interested in finding out more about the variety of shops tucked away from the main thoroughfare. There were just half a dozen regulars for the Eucharist in the church shop, no visitors. After a drink together, I walked back past the town's old covered market, now transformed into a small exhibition centre, and finally found it open at a time that was convenient for me to stop and take a look at the latest offering.

Jose Miguel Ortuño Rodriguez has published a book about how Nerja has changed in the past two centuries from a poor simple fishing village into an international holiday resort. This uses the work of an eminent local writer and historian Alejandro Bueno García (1851-1927), using quotations from his work about Nerja published in 1907, illustrated with photographs from the era.

The substance of the book is the subject of displays on a series of eight large wall mounted exhibition panels. One end of the building contains a collection of painting and furniture of the period, arranged into a writer's study, and there are display cases with artifacts from the period as well.

Now that I have come to the end of all the learning exercise  drills in the Duo Lingo language app, I thought I would make an effort to read all the texts as well as look at the many interesting pictures. This was not quite as daunting as I feared. With some gaps, I was able to follow most of the texts I read from start to finish. I still have a lot of work to do, topping up my memory and remembering verb declensions, but I begin to feel as if I have actually made some progress in learning Spanish since Kath introduced me to the app last Christmas.

Back at home, it was time to do a load of washing before lunch, but the machine wouldn't start, as there was no water supply. If it was scheduled and advertised, I hadn't noticed. Anyway, promptly at one it resumed, thoughtfully, for people starting to cook lunch. By mid afternoon the washing was done, dried and gather in, smelling all fresh and warm, baked in the bright dry heat of the backyard that gets the sun durectly above between two and six at this time of year. Then, time for a brisk walk to Mercadona to replenish some basic foods for the week. Domestic tasks complete, time to relax.

After supper I went out for a stroll around the urbanizacion, and came across a very excited white wagtail, flying around in circles, chirping madly for its mate, and returning to perch and chirp again, staying still long enough for me to get a few photos, despite fading light.

I found my way to Genesis Bar, the local hostelry in the urbanizacion, run by an English couple. It was very quiet. I had a beer and then made my way home.

Finally, I found out from a local English language website 'Nerja Today' news blog that Partido Popular's Jose Alberto Armijo Navas, el alcalde de Nerja, has been re-elected for another four years, albeit with a reduced share of the vote (42.62%), which means coalition negotiations, as elsewhere in Spain this week. He's been Mayor for the past 20 years, with a good development track record, so no doubt his team has a lot of experience of compromise as well as leadership at a local level.