me and my wife stayed here 2 weeks from 4 to 19 august

the owners, Terry and Henry were very warm and kind, and Henry is a great chef too

the position of Azul is very cosy as you can reach Malaga and the Costa del Sol with a local train in 30-40 minutes, the stay costs about a half of the coast and the sleep is very quiet

Alora has its own feria that is very interesting with simple and genuine folklore and good and very cheap foods

the only cons are that the train doesn't run during the night, ans the same for bus, but for the Feria of Malaga you have 2 ways:
you see only the daily feria that was anough for us OR you remain in Malaga feria till to its end, i.e. at about 6am and come back with the first daily train (the solution chosen by many young people)
in a similar manner, if you want to see a flamenco show or a sunset on the Malaga beach, you must have/rent a car or do a overnight as for the feria

the same to reach a couple of nice places in the neighbourhood, i.e. El Torcal and El Chorro: very oddily, thes places are only 10-15 minutes by train but the Malaga-Cordoba train doesn't stop at Alora

for Ronda, Cordoba and Granada, the best way is going to Malaga and jump on a train or a bus: note that spanish trains, even the Malaga-Alora, are very clean, cool, fast, always on time and quite cheap
buses are a lot cheaper and usually cosy but a bit less on time, due to the traffic, sometimes

the Costa del Sol is very overbuild, but some restful places and beaches luckily remain,
for example Los Alamos
we loved Benalmadena too as there is a nice public park full of animals: chickens, rabbits, turtles, birds, fishes, were you can spend hours to rest under trees shadow and shoot animals

last but not least, all town beaches has free facilities as toilets and showers and a free area with sand, grass and shadow, but a couple of sunbeds with a beach umbrella for the whole day is very cheap