Find your dream home in Coín

Coín is an inland town that has never depended on the coast, though the coast is close enough to use. It sits in the Guadalhorce valley with water running through it: springs, the mills that once used them, and fountains built into the squares, in a place where the ground gives up water easily. The centre is a working Andalusian town rather than a showpiece, with its own schools, its shops and a Sunday food market that pulls people in from across the province.

The setting explains the appeal. Orchards and market gardens fill the valley floor around the town, the Pereilas and Alaminos rivers run through protected land, and the Sierra de las Nieves rises behind. Barranco Blanco, a gorge of pale rock and clear pools, lies between the Sierras Negras and the Sierra de Mijas on the town's southern side. Málaga, Marbella and Fuengirola are all reachable in under half an hour by car, which is why Coín has drawn people who want countryside without giving up the airport.

What you give up is the sea itself, and the convenience that comes with a coastal address. There is no train, the beaches are a drive rather than a walk, and summers in the valley are hotter than on the shore. In exchange the plots are larger, the prices are a fraction of the coast, and the town keeps going in February.