As the old saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention. This is partially true in this case. For quite a while, I have been aware that I needed to develop a YouTube channel so that I could produce some videos, primarily because what I wanted to show you would work best in video format. This was a bit of a long-range goal, but it became a short-range goal this year in Spain.
If you follow me on Facebook, you will have seen that I posted videos of the two different apartments in which we are staying here in Estepona this winter. I had no problem posting these on Facebook, but when it came time to throw them up on my website, they were larger than what my service provider would allow… stymied!
Then, I remembered that it is very easy to embed video clips that I have found on YouTube in my posts, no matter what size they are. Eureka! The lightbulb went on.
How We Ended Up Renting Two Apartments
At the risk of repeating myself, I will offer up a Reader’s Digest-like abbreviated review of what I wrote in my recent piece about booking apartments at the last minute. You can read all about it here.
My first attempt at booking a waterfront apartment failed because I did not want to pay as much as the individual was asking for a two-month rental. I booked a similar unit in a different location on the waterfront. Two days later, that owner abruptly cancelled our reservation… they can do that. I went back to the original apartment owner and said I was ready to book. It was mostly available, but a three-week period in the middle of the two months block was already taken.
So, we booked the original place (Apartment #1) for a week at the beginning of our stay and for four weeks and a bit at the end of our stay. We booked another apartment (Apartment #2) in the Old Town to fill in the three-week gap.
Here are the two different apartments that we have rented this winter – along with a few thoughts about them. For the record, we are now back in Apartment #1 for the duration of our stay.
The Apartments and Some “bon mots” About Each
In the past, I have posted photo collages to show off the apartments we have rented, but this year I am strictly going full video. I have to admit that this is because shooting a video is so much easier than taking a series of photos and it involves much less work putting a post together. Perhaps laziness is the mother of invention. 🙂
I will be sharing my musings with you about our likes and dislikes for each apartment. This information may help you make decisions about renting properties on the Costa del Sol in general or in Estepona specifically.
Before I begin, I probably should state that both apartments, as you will see, are very nicely appointed. The owners of both had clearly put a lot of thought into design and layout. Both apartments had artwork, which is not common. We often get blank walls.
Waterfront Apartment – Apartment #1
I can say right off the top that Apartment #1 is our favourite of the two now that we have had a chance to experience both. Probably what we love the most is being able to sit out on the terrace in the sun with a spectacular view out across the Mediterranean.
The other thing that we really like, and which is important to us, is that it has an excellent kitchen. By that I mean it has all the necessary big appliances and all the necessary small appliances and kitchen utensils you require to prepare a proper meal for two or more people. Additionally, there are all sorts of kitchen sundries like dry goods, cooking oils, and spices available. It is really helpful to have all those basic things in place so that you don’t have to rush out to buy them all right away.
There is comfortable seating in the living space for at least four people. The fact that an extra armchair is included along with a very large sofa really goes a long way to provide proper seating. And it would be easy enough to pull some patio furniture inside if we had a larger group of people visit. When we first started coming to the Costa, we didn’t give any thought to seating until we had visitors. We quickly discovered in 2017 when another couple came to visit that there wasn’t adequate seating for more than two people… Oops!
The bedrooms are very spacious and there is lots of storage available. On the negative side, I would also have to add that the beds aren’t as comfortable as the ones we had in Apartment #2 and the linens aren’t of very high quality. The other issue, which is not uncommon on the Costa del Sol, is that the lighting in the bedrooms is woefully inadequate. One of the bedside lamps doesn’t work at all and the others really don’t provide adequate lighting for bedtime reading
The two bathrooms are very well appointed with spacious walk-in showers. However, I find the one that I use is a bit slippery, but not dangerously so. It does have a small handrail for anyone who felt it was too slippery.
There is a separate small laundry room, which is always a nice touch. Most apartments here have the washer in the kitchen. The water heater provides an acceptable amount of hot water.
The location in town is generally good. We are within walking distance of a couple of grocery stores and a few restaurants are close by. Although we sit right on the waterfront, which is great, no currently open beachfront restaurants or bars are close by; so we can’t just pop out to for a quick drink or a bite in a hurry. The walk to waterfront restaurants, or to the city centre and the amenities offered in Old Town is a little longer than what we would prefer. Doable, but not ideal.
The place is not perfect, but it is very acceptable. And well suited to a long-term stay.
Here it is!
Old Town Apartment – Apartment #2
When I said we preferred Apartment #1, that doesn’t mean that Apartment #2 was totally inadequate. That is not the case. It offered many benefits, but was lacking in a couple of minor ways and in one especially significant way… The kitchen.
This apartment was in an excellent location. It was about 100 m to the beach and the Paseo, so the waterfront was very accessible. There is a significant restaurant strip right around the corner, and a Mercadona grocery store… our favourite… was very close by. A taxi stand was within about a two-minute walk, the same amount of time it took to walk to one of a number of waterfront venue for beverages or a bite.
The other thing we really liked about the apartment in the Old Town was that the beds were the most comfortable we have ever experienced in any rental property here. They had very nice linens as well.
The apartment had an outdoor space, a cute little walled-in two-story courtyard that had a dining table set up in it. Unfortunately, the table and chairs took up most of the space, and there was no patio furniture to sit on. Additionally, at this time of year, the sun actually doesn’t make its way down to the surface, so not a great outdoor sitting area anyway. The glass access door to the outside space was in the kitchen so it didn’t even provide natural lighting for the apartment. The only source of outside light was from the French door like windows.
Four retractable clotheslines out in the courtyard made doing our laundry a lot easier. However, the washing machine is in the kitchen, taking up quite a bit of space that could have been used for storage.
You will see that the video shows several sets of French door windows that, when open, created a French balcony effect. However, due to the way the drapes were hung, the doors could only be opened halfway, preventing full enjoyment of the balcony-like feature.
The real drag on this apartment was the tiny, poorly outfitted kitchen. I’m going to throw in a few photos here to explain what we thought we were getting and what we ended up having. I don’t think it was an intentional effort to mislead, but a byproduct of using a wide-angle lens to shoot photos of tight places.
In the listing, the photos made it look like there was a four-burner cooktop and a large storage cabinet. I saw that there were no upper cabinets, so having a large storage cabinet was clearly going to be important. In reality, it had only a two-burner stovetop, and what I imagined to be a storage unit was, in fact, a broom closet… in the kitchen??
The following carousel looks and act a little different than those in previous offerings. But the process remains the same. Click on the left image and they will pop in a larger, easier to view and read format.
The other thing that was annoying was that there were absolutely no cooking necessities provided other than one container of coffee and another of sugar and a few basic and simple utensils from IKEA. Even salt and pepper had to be purchased. The storage space was totally inadequate. No place to store food other than on the counter was available. We ended up removing wine glasses, which filled up an entire drawer, so we could store food. The fridge was way too small for a long-term stay as well.
My overall take on the apartment is that it is generally well-appointed, it has wonderfully comfortable beds, and it’s in a great location. But you would probably end up having to eat out a lot because of the limitations of the kitchen.
So, as far as we are concerned, it is not a good choice for a long-term stay. It is great if you’re there for only a week or two.
Have a look! I am huffing and puffing a bit because we have just returned from a long brisk walk. Hope you don’t find that too distracting. 
Renting Two Apartments
To wrap this up, I should add a few words about renting two different apartments to fill out your long-term stay. If you read my piece on booking apartments in the Costa at the last minute, you will have seen that in fact, I did find other properties that would have been suitable, which we could have lived in for the full two months and cancelled our “two-apartment-arrangement”.
I won’t go into all the reasoning behind sticking with two apartments, but one of the considerations was that this allowed us to live in two different parts of town. We thought this would give us a better sense of where we might like to be located if we decided to come back here again. If you missed it, this is our first year staying in Estepona.
Generally, though, on the downside, this is a much more costly way to do things. We used Airbnb this year, so we ended up with three separate bookings, which means we were paying cleaning and Airbnb fees three times instead of just once. Secondly, you have no real bargaining power if you are booking shorter stays. It really is advantageous to be able to say to someone that you would like to book their apartment for two full months during the winter if you’re looking to get the very best price.
So, it is unlikely that we would do this again. That said, if you’re looking to check out a town and experience it by living in a couple of different areas, then perhaps this would work for you.
The title image was created by combining two photos from each of the apartments’ Airbnb listings.
