Real Life Stories Diary Of A Brit Abroad: Part Two

Date Published:

03/09/2008

Having held back the maximum number of carry-over holiday days possible and taking advantage of the Great British Bank Holidays, I mapped out my journey of discovery. Over the next 12 months, I travelled the length and breadth of the Spanish coastline, covering all the compass points.

To the North and West, the untamed, rugged majesty of the Atlantic coast, to the South and East, the mêlée of Mediterranean beach life. What follows now is my – heavily abridged – guide to the Costas – a Contiki Guide to the Costas if you will. (For those of you who don’t know about Contiki Tours, these are organised trips taken, in the main, by our younger antipodean cousins during their European gap years and offer the greatest number of destinations visited in the shortest possible timeframe.)

Costas Verde and do Marisco – the north-western and Galician coastline: stunning, immense, lush with granite cliffs that take your breath away; San Sebastian for the food; Bilbao for the Guggenheim Museum; the deep spiritualism of Santiago de Compostela.

Costa Brava – the most easterly point of Spain, stretching from the French border to just north of Barcelona: a rugged, almost lunar landscape, national parks aplenty, winds that would send people loco (and regularly do); the Dali museum in Figueres; Picasso’s legend living on in Cadaqués and the delightfully named Tossa del Mar.

Bay of Costa Blanca

Costa Blanca – the hugely overdeveloped start of the British invasion of Spain: Alicante’s beauty is overshadowed by high-rise apartment blocks; Benidorm, lovely Benidorm, actually being revamped in an effort to eradicate the Club 18-30 hangover; the faded maritime fortress at Denia.

Costa de Almeria – recently one of the frontrunners in the race to be the homebuyers’ hotspot: charmless in the main but saved by the likes of Mojacar and Aguilas and the undeniably beautiful protected coast of Cabo de Gata.

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