Another good day

beach house Torrelamata









We are now just one step away from having our residency cards. The process which we started in November 2004 is nearly complete. Yesterday we went to the new Police Station in Alicante to have our fingerprints taken and hand our photographs over ready to go onto the cards. Actually when we say fingerprints it was only the print of the first finger on the right hand that they took. All we have to do now is go to the bank and pay the 6,57€ fee and then next month we can collect the cards from Orihuela Police Station.

There two main advantages for us in having the cards are a) we won’t need to carry our passports around as identification and b) we can elect to pay tax in Spain on our pensions and hopefully save money.

On the way back we stopped at Torrelamata. One of the things that Pamela wanted to do was find this very interesting restaurant that we were taken to on our inspection trip. We walked along the wooden walkway that winds through the sand dunes. This walk takes you by the splendid beach which joins Torrelamata to La Mata itself. Almost in La Mata we found the place we were looking for. The restaurant is at the foot of a large block of flats. The front, which looks like the rear of a galleon, faces the sea in a small cove. The inside is decorated to look like the inside of the galleon and has a huge fish tank just in the entrance. The restaurant isn’t visible from the road nor is it signposted. So if you didn’t know about its existence you would never come across it. Now we know where it is we will go back for some special occasion and treat ourselves.

On the way back along the beach we stopped for lunch at a beachside bar. The tapas they served were excellent and very cheap. We then found this house along the beach all locked up for Winter. Imagine owning a house like that right by the beach and only using it for holidays.