Bédar, Almería, Spain....info on our new chosen home and area.

A map showing Bédar and the nearby towns down to the coast.

I thought being as we have now confirmed that we are going to be buying a house in Bédar that I should give you some background on the place and the area then maybe you will understand why we fell in love with this place and chose to set down roots here.


Bédar is a municipality of Almería province, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. It is an authentic Spanish village, in existence since the time of the Moors and it nestles into the lower slopes of the Filabres mountains. It is approximately 15kms inland from the coastal resorts of Mojácar Playa and Garrucha.


As you drive up towards the picturesque mountain village, Bédar becomes a focal point sitting astride a pretty hillside setting in a quiet and calm atmosphere and it still retains many of the original cottages which line the quaint narrow streets and little alleyways.

All everyday needs are catered for including a Post Office, Chemist/Farmacia, doctor's surgery/office, and a supermarket along with many tapas bars and some good restaurants too. You can start your day with a walk to the bakery to buy freshly baked bread or croissants. The place is very photogenic; it is easy to be inspired by views of walls festooned with beautiful bougainvillea or pink and white almond blossom in January.

Bédar settled in the hills.

There are three good restaurants/bars offering a variety of cuisine so no need to travel far to enjoy the ambience of this lovely village, but at the same time it provides an ideal base from which to explore this little known and relatively unspoilt area of Spain.


According to Wikipedia the village is 404m above sea level, in 2011 the population was 1061 people! As you can imagine that makes for a very peaceful place to live! Of that figure 538 are men and 523 are women. Out of 1061 a staggering 630 foreigners have chosen to make this place their home. Major sources of settlers are expat Brits! This place was recently voted one of the best places to settle and live in Spain, it placed in the top twenty!

Bédar by night.

Our house is just outside the village on the road up to Bédar and you turn off the road up to the village by Kilometre marker 5 onto a tarmaced track that wends its way around the hillsides connecting various villas on their own plots to the outside world! It is very quiet and peaceful and offers great privacy, yet you are close enough to all amenities and the nearby towns of Los Gallardos, Turre, Vera etc. City life is not too far away either. We can be in either Almeria City or Lorca in about an hour so culture and major shopping is not too far away! Airports close to us are in order of distance, Almería, Murcia, and Alicante. 


We ventured even higher into the hills above Bédar to a wonderful Cortijo styled restaurant called Montana and had a wonderful meal there. The down side to going there is that the journey up to it is hair raising for most people and for a certain Mr Cohen rather stomach churning! The pay off of course apart from the wonderful food were amazing views across the valley to the coast and sea beyond. Some of these views can be seen in the gallery of pictures I posted yesterday.