I was only saying this a.m. to Mrs V, what a superb job the researchers have for Top Gear.
The road to nowhere is from the ski station Type in something like
Ski Sol y nieve Sierra Nevadas Spain ii nto Google Earth. It used to go over the top to the Alpujarras. A lot of car companies and folk with powerful cars use the road to "test". You only need a car posted at the bottom and you can be fairly sure of empty road.. Plenty more great roads like that for anyone interested. For example Suspiro del Moro (outside Granada on the way to Motril) to Almunecar.
A lot of Spains prosperity was fuelled by an unprecedented building boom with cheap money. Every local council had great plans. Two of ours nearby had plans for airports even though at that time both Malaga and Granada had airports. Some councils executed their plans. The councillors knew(or were the bankers) and the builders were family. I think the airport is Castellon airport. I believe it has never had a passenger plane. But it could quite easily be one of a handful of similar others.
I read somewhere that Spain has more empty new properties than the rest of Europe put together. I somehow doubt that but there are hundreds of thousands, maybe millions empty. Every town has empty blocks of flats. On the holiday Costas there are hundreds of huge developments that just stopped at whatever point they were at. Some people buying off plan have been forced by the courts to pay for something that will never be built or completed in their lifetime. It is a real mess and is why I say it will take ten years or more to get Spain back on its feet. Ten years ago the Spanish government said there was work for anyone who could speak Spanish. A million folk took up the offer which came with a grant of 1000 euros to get them here. Most came from South America. They worked in Agriculture or in construction. Some brought their families over and bought a flat. When the collapse came most left and because of negative equity just handed the keys back to the bank. The government gave a grant of I think, 400 euros to clear off. Very little in the way of social security or benefits here though the church does a lot to help with food banks.
Still a nice country. The climate and the scenery and history haven't changed.
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Topic: Top Gear-Spain (Read 2960 times)