VILLAS LA MARINA

THE AREA
La Marina Urbanisation is situated about 30 minutes drive south of the provincial capital, Alicante and roughly 20-25 minutes South of El Altet (Alicante) Airport, in the Southern Costa Blanca. It is roughly 3 Kilometres in land from a fabulous long sandy beach (more about that below…) and close to the seaside village from which it takes its name.

WHAT IS LA MARINA LIKE?
The Urbanisation is large, but not so large as to be impersonal, and offers all the facilities you will need whilst on holiday or to live year round. There are Doctors (Spanish National Health and a private clinic), Schools in the village, a pharmacy, excellent shopping, sports facilities, a popular twice weekly market (for wonderful fresh vegetables, traditional pottery and the regions specialty, leather goods) and plenty of bars and restaurants to enjoy. La Marina is much more than just a holiday or summer town; it is occupied by both ex-pats (from Britain, Ireland, Germany, Holland, Scandanavia, Switzerland….) and Spanish residents all year round. The area is also a popular holiday destination for the Spanish with many people from Madrid owning a second home in the Urbanisation. There is no such thing as a typical La Marina home, with accommodation ranging from small terraces, to vast detached vast villas on generous plots of land with beautiful gardens and a private swimming pool. In short, there is something for all budgets. However, you will not find many apartments here, all development is low rise. Green areas have also been included by the planners, together with several designated commercial areas.

La Marina is the ideal location for your Dream Home in the Sun...

FOOD AND EATING OUT:
La Marina Urbanisation offers a wide variety of restaurants with such diverse cuisines as Mexican, Chinese, Italian and German! If you are a fan of Indian takeaways or fish and chip suppers you will also be well served.
La Marina is well served by a variety of supermarkets and independent specialist shops. The supermarket chains Mercadonna, Caprabo and Supervalu have outlets in the urbanisation and there are several huge hypermarket stores (Carrefour and Eroski) within a 20 minute drive. You will also find a Thomas Green shop (specialising in British foods), International Supermarket and several other small supermarkets offering a wide range of goods.

BEACHES:
The Costa Blanca is well known for its fabulous white sand, blue flag beaches. In our opinion we are especially blessed with La Marina’s beach, which is fine sand backed by dunes and then pine forest with the village approximately 500 metres in land. The pine forest is a favourite Sunday picnic spot for the Spanish. The beach is served by just a few temporary bars in the summer and there are two restaurants where you can enjoy anything from snack to a full paella lunch. There are a variety of other excellent beaches within easy driving distance, especially the Guardamar beach (about 5 minutes drive to the South from La Marina) that is incorporated to the town and therefore offers a wide range of bars, cafés and restaurants just a short stroll from your deck chair.

OTHERSHOPPING:
Within approximately 15-20 minutes drive of the Urbanisation are two major shopping centres. Both the “Al Jub” centre in Elche and “Habaneras” in Torrevieja offer a variety of Spanish and international fashion stores various specialist shops offering cosmetics, toiletries, household electronics, sporting goods and housewares. The Al Jub in Elche also has an Eroski hypermarket. Elche is also home to the ever popular shoe factory and will soon benefit from a huge “El corte ingles” department store! There are also several new shopping centres in the neighbouring Murcia region, in particular, roughly 40 minutes drive away is the recently opened IKEA store.

TELEVISION:
Where ever you are along the coast you can be quite certain that you will not miss out on British TV. There are various packages available. The most popular provider on the urbanisation sets up a service for approximately 600 € and then there is an annual charge of approximately 180 €, this typically includes the usual BBC1 and 2, ITV, channels 4 and 5, Sky news, Sky 1, Sky movies 1 and 2, Sky sports 1 and 2, the History channel and many others depending on the package chosen. Watching Spanish TV is a good way of learning the language!

LEARNING SPANISH:
The Costa Blanca is home to a great number of English speaking ex-pats, some of whom have lived here for 20 years or more without ever feeling the need to learn more than rudimentary Spanish! Certainly it is possible to live here quite comfortably in this way, many of the local Spaniards speak excellent English and one of the nice things about the community is the willingness to make friends with and help out newcomers. When you do need a Spanish speaker to help you, you will be able to pay an interpreter on an hourly basis. Nevertheless for many it is a shame to live in Spain and not to learn the language. Whatever your age it will not be impossible to be able to read, understand and speak the language to a reasonable level and if you have young children you will find they learn very quickly and will soon be bi-lingual, a very useful skill to have! You will find many Spanish language classes offered in La Marina, whether for one or two hours per week or an intensive full time course over 4 to 12 weeks. If you do make the effort it will be much appreciated by the Spanish.

THE WEATHER:
The weather is one of the principal reasons most people chose to live or holiday in Spain. The following are average temperatures for the Southern Costa Blanca, July and August are incredibly hot and virtually the whole of Spain de-camps to the costas to enjoy the Mediterranean. Year round residents can enjoy swimming in the sea from May to mid November, longer for the braver! The wonderful Mediterranean climate means that you will be able to spend the vast majority of the year outside, if you wish. Outdoor living in the norm here and although there can be cold days (and nights) in winter it is quite usual to enjoy meals (certainly lunch) outside even in January.

THE COST OF LIVING:
To many people, Spain offers a life style that they could not afford to enjoy in Northern Europe; you will notice a big difference in the costs of going out for meals or drinks. The standing charges of a property here are also significantly less. Electricity and water bills are obviously dependant on usage. Council charges are significantly less than in Britain, the average bill for a 2-3 bedroom villa per year should not far exceed 250€ and in many cases is far less!

SOCIAL LIFE:
People who come here to live are often concerned about leaving family and friends behind, although most soon find that having a home in the sun means family and friends flock to visit them! Most people soon make plenty of friends and find they enjoy a far more varied and active social life than in England. In addition, La Marina and the surrounding area offer a variety of clubs and associations to cater for almost every interest. When you are here, just take a look at the local free English language newspapers.

ANY QUESTIONS?
Any queries you may have, or for any further information please do contact us. All e-mails are replied to promptly.