SantaPolaChris

When we first moved to Spain, almost three years ago, we rented a flat in Santa Pola.

We liked Santa Pola; the Med at the bottom of the street, plenty to do, plenty of shops and close to where Maggie worked. The problem was that houses were too expensive for us to consider which is why, eventually we ended up in Culebrón.

Santa Pola is invaded by tourists, mainly Spanish tourists, during July and August. Various people have told me that the population, normally about 25,000 increases from anywhere between 125,000 to 200,000.

But the soft spot for Santa Pola remains so, when we had to pick up a pal from the airport yesterday, we popped in to revisit some of our old haunts. Maggie was concerned that we would never find a parking space (some English chums visited last year and abandoned the idea when they couldn't find a parking space) and that the town would be so crowded that we would be shouldered off the the pavements by the milling tourists. In fact we parked in ten minutes and the town was relatively quiet. Plenty of life on the beach and along the front but the town centre was lively though not at all uncomfortable. We were able, for example, to wander around the book fair in the main glorieta by the fortress without any shoulder charging and we had no trouble getting a table in the restaurant we'd set out for.

And only fifteen minutes from the airport.