{"id":195326,"date":"2025-06-18T20:47:15","date_gmt":"2025-06-18T20:47:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/195326\/"},"modified":"2025-06-18T20:47:15","modified_gmt":"2025-06-18T20:47:15","slug":"brits-quit-the-coast-for-real-spain-euro-weekly-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/195326\/","title":{"rendered":"Brits quit the coast for real Spain \u00ab Euro Weekly News"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s not a trend yet, but it\u2019s definitely happening.<\/strong><\/p>\n

British expatriates, who once dreamed of a relaxed Mediterranean life on Spain\u2019s coasts, are increasingly packing up and heading inland.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, Euro Weekly News reported on the case of Anne Trust<\/a>, a 75-year-old British woman who decided to leave the Catalan seaside town of Mataro after more than a decade. When she moved there in 2012, the town seemed perfect. But now, she says it has become crowded with tourists, expensive and noisy.<\/p>\n

And her story is far from unique.<\/p>\n

The Brit who abandoned Mijas Costa: \u201cAll my neighbours were Brits!\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The same disillusionment pushed 78-year-old Peter Moreve to abandon Mijas Costa, a coastal town between Malaga and Marbella, where he had lived since retiring in 2006.<\/p>\n

At the time, he was seeking better weather and a calmer pace of life compared to London. But two decades later, the lifestyle he once appreciated had been overshadowed by the growing number of fellow Brits.<\/p>\n

Now, in Mijas, about 40 percent of the approximately 93,000 residents are foreign nationals, most of whom are British.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll my neighbours were British. It was not Spain, it was England in the sun. I wanted to live in Spain, I don\u2019t particularly enjoy living among Brits,\u201d he told The i Paper<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He moved near Cordoba: \u201cIf I live in Spain, I want to be part of it\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

And he meant it. In 2018, Moreve moved to Lucena, a town of about 43,000 people, 67 kilometres from Cordoba, where very few foreigners reside.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I live in a country, I want to be part of it,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

Despite having lived in Spain for nearly 20 years and speaking Spanish, Moreve admitted that his language skills are still not good enough to pass the citizenship exam.<\/p>\n

\"'ItLucena.
Credit: Creative Commons<\/p>\n

Even so, he said his love for Spanish culture remains intact: \u201cI like Spaniards because at first sight they accept you for what you are. Then they talk about you behind your back, as Britons would,\u201d he joked.<\/p>\n

Divorced, with two adult sons, Moreve values the sense of community he never found in England. \u201cI like the fact that when you go into a shop, everyone says \u2018Hi\u2019,\u201d he said. Spaniards, he believes, are \u201cless judgemental and more accepting\u201d than Brits.<\/p>\n

The rush for a more \u2018Spanish\u2019 Spain<\/strong><\/p>\n

Peter Moreve and Anne Trust\u2019s views are echoed in new trends identified by Spain\u2019s authorities: among foreigners, there is a growing interest in inland areas.<\/p>\n

Places such as Toledo, Salamanca, Avila, Extremadura, or Ronda are becoming homes for more and more expatriates who are moving away from the over-touristed coastal areas they settled in years ago.<\/p>\n

These regions are less commercialised, some of them barely have tourists, and remain more representative of Spanish tradition and lifestyle. And many expatriates are feeling the pull of a quieter, more \u2018Spanish\u2019 Spain.<\/p>\n

Read here<\/a> more stories about life in Spain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s not a trend yet, but it\u2019s definitely happening. British expatriates, who once dreamed of a relaxed Mediterranean…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":195327,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[2000,299,104],"class_list":{"0":"post-195326","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-spain"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}