Benissa stretches down to the Mediterannean coastline and to the North you will find Moraira, Javea and Denia and to the South....Altea, Benidorm along to Alicante. Moraira is a pretty Mediterranean town which is on the coast and is always twinned with Teulada a few kilometres inland. There is the remains of Moraira Castle on the seafront and many bars, restaurants and pretty shops to browse in the clean, narrow picturesque lanes of Moraira. There are many attractive gardens and blue flag beaches. Hardly any highrise buildings exist in the town! Inland to Teulada there are prehistoric and Bronze-age connections and tourism, after dried grape production is the principle work here. There are many pretty urbanisations.

Javea, like Calp, sits on a promontory Cabo La Nao which is a parkland with many urbanisations. There are lovely beaches, a pretty town and some nightlife along the main Arenal beach. Many British live in Javea and it has private British schools as well as Spanish state ones. Not far away is the town of Denia, which also has the main hospitals for the region (as well as does Benidorm). It has just opened a new hospital which was publicly funded and privately staffed but has public patients. Denia also has a port where you can catch a 2-hour fast ferry to Ibiza and also onto Formentera. Denia has a castle overlooking the old town, many fashionable shops and eating places as well as a fish market where you can buy the unique Gambas Rojas or giant red prawns found only in Denia.

South of Benissa is Calp, famous for the Peñon rock – which the sailors of Phoenicia used as a landmark and which they called ´Little Rock´ as opposed to the ´Big Rock´ of Gibraltar. There are many long sandy beaches and coves in Calp which is a tourist town but does have a working fish port and Lonja or fish market. There is a Centro de Salud or Emergency hospital service open 24 hours a day (but doesn´t really!) in Calp.

Next to Calp, and through the 3 tunnels of Mascarat, is Campomanes - like Moraira, Denia and Calp – this small holiday port has a yacht club. It is also home to the Prime Meridian, AKA International Date Line, of 0º as Greenwich, London. I feel like I am joined to England by this umbilical line! Next to Campomanes, a couple of kilometres away, is the resort of Altea Hills where many Russians have now made their home and where there is a lovely wooden Russian Orthodox church on the hillside. Altea Hills resort has many private homes with stunning views over the Altea and Benidorm bays as well as top class hotels. A few kilometres further along the coast is Altea an old town with a beautiful church crowning it hillside position. There is a University of Arts in Altea famous for theatre and music productions.

Then the most famous of all the Costa Blanca is Benidorm.......a resort where there is life all year round as well as entertainment for all ages. Benidorm also has lovely beaches and wide promenades and nothing is nicer than to walk along of a warm Mediterranean evening browsing the sand sculptures, licking an ice cream or eating in a beachside restaurant. Benidorm also has several private British schools, both private and public hospitals.

The road, rail and bus networks all function well along the whole of the Costa Brava with trains being, cheap, plentiful and on-time. Bus travel is also plentiful and cheap. The road networks are of quality – the motorways such as the A7 are toll roads and pass all along the coast, or the N332 which is the A road equivalent running parallel but through the towns en-route. For frequent motorway travel you can apply to your Spanish banks for a VIA T machine which is a little plastic box about the size of a packet of cigarettes and this enables you to pass through the motorway pay booths, usually in specially marked lanes, without having to stop and pay in cash each time. This is particularly useful if you have a right hand drive car as the pay booths are on the left! VIA T´s payments are then deducted from your Spanish bank account.