Castle Asia Share Discussion Threads

[waldron] 20/8/2012 12:42

gracias senor

[nicd] 20/8/2012 10:53

yes, just need a pet passport with the rabies shot and all clear. Then the worming treatment before return BUT you must get the timing correct.

We get the comfortable 24 hour ferry to Santander, this has a big kennel area.

All works very well

Nic

[waldron] 20/8/2012 09:21

IS IT EASIER THESE DAYS TO BRING DOGS OUT AND THEN BACK INTO UK

[miata] 20/8/2012 08:49

On the Euro:

[miata] 17/8/2012 10:22

There are some nice areas around Denia.

[waldron] 17/8/2012 09:59

nicd

thanks for your email

not a premium poster so couldn't reply

in short i have worked many years in switzerland and france
after a stint in UAE

WAS GOING TO STAY IN JAVEA BUT LANDED UP IN MALAGA TO LEARN
SPANISH FOR A MEXICO PROJECT

NEVER DID GET TO MEXICO AND LANDED UP IN GENEVA

TOOK A TRIP SOME 5 YEARS AGO TO SEE MALAGA AND ENVIRONS BUT
SADLY THERE WAS NOT THE SAME ATMOSPHERE AS IN 1979,too much
construction and destruction. fishing villages having disappeared.

have stopped speaking spanish for many years NOW due to
mixing up with french

love haute savoie (74) near geneva

wish you the best of luck should you move to SPAIN
DENIA i'am told is also a lovely town by the sea

chose france over spain due to job opportunities and family/friend reasons

now retired and an armchair gardener

southern spain and france far to hot for me

[miata] 03/8/2012 13:59

International Consolidated Airlines Group SA said Friday it is making contingency plans for Spain's possible exit from the single European currency, the most public acknowledgment yet by a European blue-chip company of the dangers of a euro-zone collapse

[waldron] 29/7/2012 17:16

i set this thread up because i intended
to move to the south of spain near malaga or morocco

that dream is no more

France is my home now

[maxk] 23/7/2012 20:10

Welcome to Pioz: Snowy mountains, castles and a whole lot of debt


July 19, 2012 -- Updated 1805 GMT (0205 HKT)


Short video here:



(CNN) -- The Spanish town of Pioz boasts views of snow-capped mountains, a 15th-century castle, and a swimming pool for locals to bathe in -- but residents are in short supply.

Pioz has become a ghost town, a haunting reminder of the country's continuing property crisis.

Pioz is saddled with €16 million of debt, making it Spain's most indebted town. Thousands of newly-built homes remain empty and vandalized years after they were built, other projects are simply unfinished and unpaid for.

The town is in the municipality of Guadalajara, just an hour's drive from Madrid, but commuters weren't lured in by the new-build homes. Today, only 3,500 people live in these housing estates designed for 25,000.

The Spanish property boom went bust in 2007, and now 20% of Spanish homes lie empty. The banking sector has €186 billion-worth of troubled real estate assets on its books.

It is easier to grasp the impact of these statistics when standing on a street in Pioz. Row upon row of identical homes stand empty, complete with boarded-up windows, peeling plaster, hanging electrical cables and falling down "For Sale" signs.


At the heart of the town stands an iconic 15th-century castle; despite the ravages of time it appears to be in better shape than many of the newer crumbling homes that surround it.

However, looks can be deceiving. "It's falling down," said ex-Mayor Amelia Rodriguez, "we were thinking of doing some restoration work on it, but owing to the crisis it is not possible. We will leave it until one day when we can."

Elsewhere in the town lie newer constructions: A €1 million community swimming pool that had just one bather on CNN's visit, a €500,000 medical center and a €12 million sewage and water treatment plant, neither of which can be used due to lack of funds for running costs.

According to Juan Yunta, the Director of Public Works in Pioz, the €400,000 toxic waste plant, subsidized by the European Union and Department of Industry, has problems that don't stop at the running costs -- there is a dispute over who actually owns the land.

"Everything has been built on land which doesn't even belong to the town hall," he said. "Fiasco? As far as I know fiasco is when something breaks, like a natural disaster, this is something far greater -- this is utter madness."

Amelia Rodriguez has been the mayor of Pioz for just over a year, but since CNN visited has been ousted from office by the previous mayor Emilio Rincon and six councilors.

She hopes that future town planners and property developers will learn from their mistakes. "As the money came into the town hall, they didn't realize it would ever stop," she said.

"The good times do come to an end. We'll go back to the good times, but for now we must wait. I hope this is a lesson for everyone."

[miata] 23/7/2012 09:09

Spain approved new rules allowing larger shops to sell during the traditional afternoon siesta from 2pm to 4pm, and on an additional two Sundays or holidays a year for a total of ten.

Spanish ten-year borrowing costs rose to over 7.5%.

[miata] 12/7/2012 14:45

Spanish airport taxes were raised on the first of July, Spanish VAT will be raised from 18% to 21% on the 16th July.

[miata] 09/7/2012 11:24

Spanish 10 year yields reach 7.12%.

[miata] 28/6/2012 19:34

Having just returned to the UK from Spain I can report that high-spec frontline beach properties are selling for about a third of their peak Euro prices, a significant percentage are being bought by Spaniards. Golf properties are more difficult to sell and offers are possible even after heavy discounts on original asking prices.



Of course should Germany decide to leave the Euro, Sterling buyers will be able to get an even better bargain.

[miata] 12/6/2012 15:50

Bond yields on 10-year Spanish government debt breached euro-era highs on Tuesday.

[miata] 07/6/2012 13:48

Last year there were 58,000 evictions in Spain - a 22% rise. It means on average there are 159 evictions every day.

Bankia is currently asking for a 23.4bn euro state bailout due to debts caused by the property crash.

The banks now have a dilemma. If they evict people from their homes, they'll find it difficult to find replacement tenants. They well know how much empty property there is in Spain - they own much of it. On the other hand if they negotiate with the customer and cut their rates, there's a danger it could encourage others to default on payments.

[maxk] 25/5/2012 08:32

Spain to close up to 30 state-run airports

Spain is to partially close 30 of the nation's 47 state-run airports in an attempt to reduce the costs of its "white elephants" built throughout the nation during the boom years.


To the east of the country in Castellon, the town's airport inaugurated in March 2011 at an estimated cost of €150m (£130m), has yet to have a single plane touch down on its runway. Photo: Alamy



By Fiona Govan, in Madrid

9:04PM BST 24 May 2012





Some of the airports have no scheduled flights yet are fully staffed and operational in what has come to symbolise the reckless public spending projects that have left Spain crippled with debt.


Now the ministry of industry and AENA, the state-run company that controls the nation's airports, are considering plans to reduce operating hours at three quarters of the airports to include only those when flights are due or with a skeleton staff to operate in an emergency.


Among the worst performers are Badajoz airport, near the Portuguese border in western Spain, which saw its last commercial flight take-off in January.


In Huesca, a town in northern Spain billed as the "gateway to the Pyrenees", local authorities have subsidised the rare passengers flying in, just 2,781 of them in the whole of 2011, spending an estimated €1,600 on each traveller through its terminal last year. The fully staffed terminal in Huesca, including numerous restaurants, are open year-round even though the commercial flights bringing skiers to the region only operate during the winter months.


In all, there are 20 airports that handle fewer than 100,000 passengers a year, well below the estimated half a million they need to be profitable.

The nation's two private airports are faring no better. Ciudad Real, which opened in 2008 with the expectation of becoming the capital's second airport to rival Barajas to the north, was cut from scheduled routes in October last year due to a lack of demand from passengers.

To the east of the country in Castellon, the town's airport inaugurated in March 2011 at an estimated cost of €150m (£130m), has yet to have a single plane touch down on its runway.

"We are analysing each one, airport by airport, to find where we can make cost-cutting," said a spokesman from AENA.

He went on to warn that it was not a simple job and that three quarters of the airports could face being partially closed.

[miata] 10/5/2012 15:31

From fxpro.

Yesterday's decision by the Rajoy government to take a 45% stake in troubled lender Bankia and to provide capital as necessary is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of cleaning up the bereft Spanish banking system. The third-largest lender in Spain and arguably the most vulnerable because of its huge exposure to the tumbling property market, the government correctly formed the view that urgent steps were required to attempt to stabilise Bankia.
Unfortunately, the extent of non-performing property loans sitting on Spanish bank balance sheets is ballooning at an alarming pace. Earlier this year, the government demanded that lenders raise their loan-loss provisions by a further EUR 54bn to EUR 155bn. However, according to the Bank of Spain, this will only cover roughly half of the loans made to property developers, without any provisioning for the huge EUR 1.45trln of mortgages and corporate debt on bank books. Indeed, research by the Centre for Policy Studies claims that proper provisioning for non-performing loans in these two categories would entail banks setting aside a further EUR 270bn.

If the Spanish government attempted to fill this gap, it would lift the debt/GDP ratio from near 70% currently to around 120%. To make matters worse, flush with ECB cash, local banks have increased their purchases of Spanish bonds by a third in recent months. As such, if bad debts at banks continue to grow (a given), and the government is forced to inject funds (money is does not have), then the public debt grows exponentially and the sovereign's solvency is threatened, further undermining the bank's position. With the economy stuck in a deep recession and borrowing costs quite elevated, Spain would rapidly find itself trapped in a deadly debt spiral, requiring huge financial assistance from the EU and the IMF.

The frightening consequence is that, if the latter come to the party and helped Spain out it would virtually exhaust their financial resources. Little wonder that risk assets are tremulating once more.

[maxk] 24/4/2012 11:36

How much pain can Spain take?

Courtesy of mro.

[miata] 14/4/2012 09:17

Spanish bonds fell for a second week on concern ECB measures to boost liquidity are proving insufficient to prevent the euro-region debt crisis from spreading.

Ten-year Spanish yields climbed to the highest since the ECB started allocating three-year loans in December even as the government passed new measures to crack down on tax fraud.

Spain's 10-year bond yield climbed 19 basis points, or 0.19 percentage point, this week to 5.98 percent at 5 p.m. London time yesterday. The 5.85 percent bond maturing in January 2022 dropped 1.385, or 13.85 euros per 1,000-euro ($1,308) face amount, to 99.05.

Spain's government securities slid yesterday as data showed the nation's banks increased borrowings from the ECB by almost 50 percent in March, reaching the most on record. Average net borrowings by the companies climbed to 227.6 billion euros from 152.4 billion euros in February, the Bank of Spain said.