Costa Blanca

COSTA Blanca is ac\ nice place to stay whether in summer or winter. Because today it is approaching winter, let’s discuss first the many festivities this month in Costa Blanca. Right now, Christmas season for Roman Catholic inhabitants and for the rest of the Christians is in full swing. Actually, it is still Advent which started last Sunday. For four succeeding Sundays, one Advent candle representing each Sunday will be lit in a wreath placed before the altar of the local Roman Catholic church. Then for nine dawns before Christmas Eve, Costa Blanca natives will go to mass. They will then consume breakfast at street-side eateries after the mass consisting of traditional Costa Blanca delicacies such as tapas and turron as dessert. Of course, who can ever forget the yummy seafood from the Mediterranean such as redfish, grouper, mussels and lobsters dipped in healthy olive oil?

Then they jog home to go back to their work because only December 25 is the holiday. In the evening of December 24, Costa Blanca natives then go to one house in the neighborhood to drink beer while waiting for the clock to tick midnight. An hour after midnight, they go back to their respective families to have a festive celebration. There are fireworks at the Mediterranean coastline and they are really spectacular to look at. When the civil world celebrate New Year on January 1, the Roman Catholics of Costa Blanca celebrate the Motherhood of Mary. For them, it is compulsory to attend mass on that day. Aside from that, there are fireworks again on New Year’s Eve. The Christmas celebration is capped with the feast of the Epiphany on the first Sunday of January and ordinary days of the liturgical year go back again a day after that.

For the uninitiated, there is also a small Jewish community here in Costa Blanca because Spain is a secular country with equal opportunity and non-discriminatory policies. The Jews love being here because there is an abundance of lamb meat here and Jews love lamb. They also have a celebration this month which is the Hannukah or the Festival of Lights to commemorate the win of the Maccabees over King Antiochus IV Epiphanes. The Muslims in Costa Blanca too have their own celebration – the Eid ul-Adha which commemorates the willingness of prophet Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac before Allah.

During summer, beaches of Costa Blanca are divided into two – the nudist and the non-nudist. The nudist beaches are exclusive to public nudists so if you want to skinny-dip only with your boyfriend around, then better go to a secluded beach. Just don’t go alone because lifeguards and the naval Guardia Civil don’t usually patrol these areas.

Remember though, after all the excitement of the skinny dipping, there’s the rest of Spain to explore too! Why not look into Malaga and explore Andalucia? A big change from Valencia!

You could also see places outside of Spain – France is but a mere flight away and, especially if you can learn the language beforehand (playing casino en ligne for example), you really coudl appreciate the change of scenery. Try St Tropez or Nice – sure fire favourites you can’t fail to enjoy!

AS winter is closing in, temperature in Costa Blanca significantly drops from 18 degrees Celsius to about 16. This is still warm though so most of the British tourists who have been here all summer long troop back here during the holidays for another round of vacation. That’s why holiday homes here in Costa Blanca have already been reserved for winter. Costa Blanca is after all one of the remaining places in Europe to have an ideal Christmas vacation. The temperature is just right, not too cold. The residents are devout Catholics and one can hear Mass every dawn for nine days preceding Christmas. After mass, churchgoers are greeted outside with the hearty breakfast of cocoa or coffee and some pure Costa Blanca sweets and delicacies. During Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, spectacular fireworks light up the Costa Blanca coastline.

Because of the usual influx of British and Scandinavian tourists, many Costa Blanca residents have become entrepreneurial. Here in this harbor city, a state of the art hospital for the aged will rise up. In fact, it is not just a hospital for the aged; it is a retirement home as well. The retirement home will be housed near a beach resort, the Santa Pola Life Resort. Lots of clients are expected in this retirement home as it will cater to the whole Alicante area. It will be employing only the best geriatricians in Spain.

Given all these circumstances, it’s high time now to invest in a holiday home in Costa Blanca. It’s so easy to start. If you are a European, you don’t need to get a visa here in Spain. And since Spain is located in the Iberian Peninsula which is part of mainland Europe of course, you can also ride the train going to Madrid to get here. You can even bring your own car and there will be no Customs who will accost you because land borders in Spain that are shared with Portugal are unguarded. That is part of the Schengen agreement.

But before getting here, you must book your flight, your hotel room and your airport car rentals ahead of time. They tend to be filled especially during summer. But now that the housing industry has radically shifted to Europe thanks to the mortgage slump in the United States, many people are turning to this part of the Atlantic to invest in real estate. That includes Spain and obviously Costa Blanca is not an exception.

Car rental models include the Opel Astra, the Peugeot 407 and the Mercedes E270. Prices can be packaged at $500 for two days. Once you’ve rented a car, you can now scout properties in Costa Blanca along with your spouse, children, lawyer and a real estate agent. Make sure that the lawyer is adept with the realty laws in Spain. Spanish real estate policy dictates that you only have to pay two real estate taxes – the annual property income tax and the garbage collection tax which is remitted directly to the municipal government, in the case of Costa Blanca, Alicante.

COSTA Blanca is a 200-kilometer stretch along the Mediterranean coast of Spain. And since Spain is a predominantly Catholic country, it celebrates a public holiday every November 1 which is All Saints Day. During this day all over Costa Blanca, the natives troop to the cemeteries where they honor their dead loves ones by placing flowers such as chrysanthemums to the foot of the tombs.

They also lay the most favorite food of their deceased loved ones so it’s not surprising to see arroz caldo or turron placed on top of the graves at this time of the year. There is another religious celebration in Costa Blanca during Halloween aside from Todos los Santos or All Saints Day. It’s the culmination of Rosary Month every October 31.

During this particular celebration, balloons shaped like rosaries are flown all over the Mediterranean coastline. To those who are lucky enough to retrieve these merged balloons, they will receive special prizes in the form of novelty items like a golf club treat or a dinner for two or even a night’s stay for two at one of the posh luxury beach resorts here.

Speaking of resorts here in Costa Blanca, you’re in luck because the resorts here are all accredited blue flag accreditation. It means that they are taken care of in a very utmost manner. It also means that their locations are spic-and-span and tidy and tap water can be drunk. Beach resort managements here in Costa Blanca are so strict when it comes to environmental practices such as littering. When it comes to their paved parking areas, they will warn you not to park your rented off-road vehicles since mud from the tire tracks may distort the pavement.

Other specialties of Costa Blanca beach resorts are the presence of nurseries. It is there where you place your toddler or infant in order not to disturb your second honeymoon. These nurseries are equipped with highly-trained infant psychologists. Nurseries in beach resorts around the Iberian Peninsula such as Costa Blanca have been popular following the disappearance of Madeleine McCann in Portugal.

Also, these beaches around Costa Blanca are equipped with lifeguards. But a warning to honeymooners out there – these lifeguards do not usually patrol the remote beaches around their jurisdiction so make sure not to stray yourselves farther out. Anyway, Costa Blanca also has its share of nudist beaches but they are usually deserted during Halloween season since the temperatures here tend to go down already in 7 degrees Celsius or so.

The temperate Mediterranean climate makes it an atmosphere for kids to party during Halloween. Just like what they do in the rest of the Western world including the United States across the Atlantic, they also have their treat-or-trick thing here in Costa Blanca. These kids usually knock at the doors of visiting foreigners in their vacation homes and ask for candies so make sure to have a stockpile of them during Halloween. In fact, the next day – All Saints Day – is jokingly called as The Day We Fell Sick from Eating Chocolate.