Nativity Scene in Blanes

Today I went down to Blanes to do a bit of shopping in the outdoor market. At this time of year they usually have a large Nativity Scene set out at the end of the road where the fruit stalls are which always attracts a lot of interest from the passers by. Today though there wasn't as many people about so I decided to have a walk over to have a look.

Expecting to see the exact same set up as last year, I was pleasantly surprised ! It is completely different and also seems to be larger. The scene takes up all the end of the narrow road and is placed on raised platform as you can see from the photos. Many of the plants and trees are real with all the surrounding grass also being real. Making a very nice attraction, which a lot of thought and hard work has gone into.

The scene not only shows the Nativity, but also farmers working in the fields along side cows and sheep. There is also a small water feature with a waterfall. Its even worth a trip to Blanes to just see this !

New Hotels for Lloret?

Because of the lack of demand for the new apartments being built in Lloret de Mar, the construction industry has more or less come to a standstill. So new plans are now coming to light for some of the proposed sites.
Where possible some of the planned residential sites will be converted to hotels!

So what about all the people who have already spent thousands of euros buying their brand new apartment in this area, which should have maybe stood next to another private residential block? Its just possible that they will now end up with a new hotel and all the noise from it next to them.

What's the bets these new hotels will also be All Inclusive, of which there is already far too many of!

Meaning that more bars and restaurants in the town will be going out of business!!

A New Kind of Fag Run !

Some news from Barcelona today...Almost 9 million fake Lambert & Butler were found in a container by Customs and Excise officers. The cigarettes originated from Asia, and were found in a container at a depot in Girona, from where they were to be later transported to the UK.

Apartments in Barcelona to be raffled off !

A Spanish property developer said Tuesday it will hold a raffle to unload 31 apartments near Barcelona which have been difficult to sell amid a collapse in the real estate market.

Tickets for the raffle cost 50 euros (63 dollars) and they will go on sale on Wednesday, a spokesman for developer Grupo de Empresas Rob told AFP.

The company hopes to sell 7,000 raffle tickets for each apartment which will be awarded, meaning it would raise 350,000 euros per dwelling.

If the developer does not sell at least 6,500 tickets for a particular apartment, the raffle will not go ahead for that property and participants will receive a refund.

The raffle, which will be supervised by a notary, will be held in the coming months, the spokesman said.

All of the apartments -- which are between 50 and 90-square metres (970-square feet) -- are all located on the same street in the Barcelona suburb of Santa Coloma de Gramenet.

After a decade-long boom, Spain's property market began to slump last year due to rising interest rates, oversupply and tougher lending conditions introduced in the wake of the global credit crunch.

Property sales declined 28.2 percent during the first nine months of this year compared with the same period of 2007, national statistics institute INE said last week.

The drop in sales has led developers to come up with innovative promotions to try to sell properties.

In October another Spanish developer, Salsa Immobiliaria, offered a one bedroom apartment to anyone who bought one of its four-bedroom townhouses near the beach in Terrazas de Miraflores on the Costa del Sol.

In May a man who could not meet mortgage payments on his apartment near Madrid tried to organise a raffle to unload it but he had to call off the contest because he failed to get the proper authorisation.

Source: Google