Alicanteos

Located in the south of the province of Alicante Torrevieja has 82,000 inhabitant (from 144 countries, only 43,000 Spaniards ) and is distant of 48 Km from Alicante capital. Traditionally, Torrevieja was known for its salt mines, the city export between 700,000 and 1 million tons of salt and is the biggest European exporter.
Except from the salt mines there are in Torrevieja many things to enjoy such as El Parque Naturale de Las Lagunas de La Mata y Torrevieja (Nature Park of the Lagoons of La Mata and Torrevieja) , nature lovers will be amazed by this place with more than 100 different species of birds and the rich botanic taking place there. Near Torrevieja they are 5 greenlands golf courses of quality. Being a coastal city Torrevieja has its beaches (5 of them) surrounded of flamingos, no doubt, Torrevieja is also known to be a very appreciated holiday resort with more than 2 millions visitors per year, the city is the facto an expats heaven. You will not be surprise to learn that the main economic activity of the city is the tourism. Tourists come from Spain itself, northern Europe, Ireland, United Kingdom and Eastern Europe. Torrevieja is well equipped to receive large number of tourists with more than 70,000 holiday residences and more than 2,700 bed in hotels. Tourism activity reach a peak during Easter and the summer, the rest of the year, the city is more or less empty. Which is good if you want to live in peace.

Torrevieja can be a good place for retirement they are many development projects there. The offer for new or resale property is abundant. The area is also good to buy a house that you can rent to tourist at good price. Working in Torrevieja can be more difficult unless you have your own business, all jobs seems to be connected to tourism, real estate, home construction and salt extraction.

Villajoyosa , the happy town

27,000 inhabitants (as of 2004) located 32 km’s from Alicante and 10 km’s from Benidorm . Villajoyosa is known to be a port and a specialist in Chocolate. The tradition of chocolate making has its origin in the cacao trade with Venezuela and Ecuador.
The town has even its own chocolate museum this says a lot.

La fabrica de Chocolate Clavileño is a chocolate factory open to public for visit. Located outside the town in direction of Benidorm (road: N 332).

In order to see their houses from the see, the inhabitants painted their houses in vivid colours, yellow, blue, green. You can see those houses specific to Villajosoya in the neighbor of Arsenal , you will notice a wall built in ancient time to protect the town against invader. The port of Villajoyosa was important in the past.

Villajoyosa has 12 km’s of beach with the beach of Parais ( the favourite of the windsurfing lovers), playa del centro , which is a blue flag beach ,finally the playa Torres located near the roman tower of Sant Josep. There are other beaches one for the nudists at Raco Del Conill. All of those beaches have in common to be quiet place. Except may be the 28th july when they are celebrating the Moor and Christians with many people for other cities coming in Villajoyosa to assist the celebration. The celebration take place on the beaches. A trip with the Lemon Express Train will make you enjoy the views of the area.

The well kept museum of archeology of Villajoyosa (Situated in Calle Barranquet, Esquina Constitucion) has a collection of ancient objects Iberic and Roman, there are also a collection of objects about chocolate making and culture. There is a piece dating back 2600 years an Egyptian water jug. Perpendicular to the river Amadorio , the Colon Street a place where you can walk during the week end and making some shopping from there you can visit and the beautiful College of Doctor Alvaro Esquerdo, built in 1929.

Located 27 KM in the south of Alicante, La marina is an urbanization divided in 2 part one is typically called La marina village and he is near the sea. The second part is just called La marina , this is where most expat live, located to 3 KM from La marina village and the sea.

La marina population is mostly expats with a large ratio of Brits and Germans. Most shops are either owned by Brits or Germans, I do not remember a shop owned by a Spaniard in this part of La marina except the supermarket chains. La marina is a sort of England under the sun.
You can go to a newsagent and buy your regular british magazines or newspapers. If you rent a house there, chance is that the house will be furnished with at TV and a subscription to the BskyB sat tv network. Most people seem over 50 and retired, they are virtually no job opportunity unless the possibility to start your own shop or pub. Most jobs are in the city near by such as Elche (16 km) and Alicante (27 Km), it is recommend to have a car to live in La marina with one bus every 1h30, it is difficult to count on that transport mean. But taxi are available in abundance at the price of 1 euro per kilometer.
La marina enjoy all facilities to make the life of his inhabitants easier, they are hospitals, shopping mall, brit takeaway, supermarkets (with brits products), banks, car hire services. They are a few restaurants. The atmosphere in La marina is calm and peaceful. La marina village near the sea is also very quiet and calm, in the village you have a school and more shops owned by Spaniard this time.
They are a few ceramics business in the area. Near La marina beach there is a camping. One of particularity of La marina beach is to have dunes. It is nice to have a walk there and listen to the sound of locusts.

They are one school in La marina village and it is also the place where you can take the bus for Alicante or Torrevieja. They are 25 to 30 minutes of walk between La marina village and the other side la Urbanization La marina. In the Urbanization you can take bus for Elche and the near by villages such as San Fulgencio.

CATRAL

More inland located a few kilometer away from la Urbanisation is Catral a small Spanish village in real spain with almost no expat. Catral is very peaceful place surrounded by hills and deserts, you can feel an energy from the place. At least it raises some emotions , some people will not support such closeness to the nature, but then if you want to buy a very cheap house in the Alicante area, Catral is may be the the place not to miss.