Costa Calida

If you have read our previous blogs on our family holiday to Murcia and the Costa Calida region of Spain then you have already heard about the child friendly holiday villa we stayed in and a little about our initial journey. We spent a week in October in this lovely region of Spain with the family who range in age from 4 to 48, the weather was fabulous and so was the company.

Here are a few places we visited while we were on holiday.

L’Airemar restaurant

If you are staying at the El Valle golf resort there is a fabulous restaurant, L’Airemar, within a few minutes drive. Don’t be put off by its exterior (it has a motorway cafe resemblance) as inside it offers the most amazing Spanish food! It is a shop/restaurant combined and offers tasty fresh meat, vegetables and cheeses to eat in the restaurant or buy and cook on the BBQ and is a must!

Murcia

Murcia itself is a wonderful town with so much history. The cathedral is beautiful, when we were there the locals were marching through the street accompanied by some dramatic drummers we think they were celebrating St Mary of Murcia, the buildings really amplified the sound. We finished in the lovely Plaza de Las Flores where we had Tapas and watched the world go by…

Cartagena

We had a lovely day out in the historical town of Cartagena. There are lots of things to do here, shop, visit the Roman theatre, take an open top bus tour or boat ride around the coast. We hopped on the ‘Ole’ a Catamaran trip that was perfect for our four year old. It lasted just 45 minutes around the coastline he loved it! Under 5s go free too!

Catamaran boat trip

Statue at the port in Cartegena

Lo Pagan/San Pedro Del Pinatar

There are plenty of great beaches in the region and we visited Lo Pagan/San Pedro Del Pinatar. This beach is located in the Mar Menor (Little Sea) the largest salt water lagoon in Europe. Here the waters are beautifully clear and shallow, and the sand perfect for sand castles so ideal for toddlers and young children. We were told that there were mud baths, walkways to the sea and Flamingos. We actually didn’t see any but think we may have been in the wrong place!

Cabo De Palos

If you are looking for a traditional Spanish Sunday market visit Cabo De Palos. Here you will be able to pick up some fresh fruit, veg and local fish as well as lots of clothes, toys and general market products. Locals and tourists travel from far and wide to this market which is held on Sunday mornings and there is also a lovely marina to have a spot of lunch after shopping.

Carroscoy Nature reserve

Just 15 minutes from the El Valle is the Carroscoy Nature reserve. Take a walk through the beautiful mountain paths, visit the museum of light or animal sanctuary or just sit and have a coffee while the kids play in the park. If you fancy a spot of lunch why not join the local families cooking up a feast on one of the concrete BBQs.

For more ideas of what to do in the Costa Calida with the family on holiday take a look at our family friendly guide to the Costa Calida.

Child-friendly holiday accommodation

There are some lovely places to stay in the Costa Calida region here are two we have seen.

El Valle

If staying in a villa at the El Valle, the clubhouse, gold course and swimming pools are great for all ages. Our four year old loved riding the golf buggies! The villa we stayed in has a private pool which is fully fenced so you van really relax with toddlers and crawlers!

Mar Menor

While there I also visited a two bedroom villa in the Mar Menor golf resort. The villa is perfect for a small family, it has two bedrooms, en-suite and second bathroom, a fully enclosed lawned garden and only a couple of minutes walk from the swimming pools and restaurants.

A family holiday in Murcia, Costa Calida, Spain on our way… (holidaytots.wordpress.com)

So it is October and we are jetting off to the El Valle Golf resort in Spain for a last minute bit of sunshine and to see what this region has to offer. The Costa Calida is easy to get to with airports such as Alicante and San Javier(El Valle is located about an hour from the former and 20 minutes from the latter).

Both airports are serviced by budget airlines Easyjet and Ryanair and also British Airways if you prefer. I regularly use Skyscanner as my first port of call to get a guide to times and cost. All of the airlines, at the time of writing this, will let you take a car seat for the hold and pushchairs if your destination doesn’t have one.

This time we flew from Luton, my least preferred airport 🙁 but actually it was a breeze, well kind of… First the security team thought there was a bomb in our hand luggage putting my 23 year old daughter into a mild panic, then I lost my phone, found by the kind man at Pret, then we had to identify our bags on the tarmac as the systems had crashed and finally my 20 year old son misplaced his passport on the plane before take off! Well actually he had given it to me and I had put it in our food bag, thankfully spotted by an eagle eyed fellow passenger. Oops.

Landing in Alicante was fairly unadventurous with absolutely no queue at customs and a quick luggage turn around.

We were met by my oldest son who had arrived a little earlier and we headed off in the direction of Murcia in glorious sunshine hurrah!

It took us just under an hour to arrive at El Valle and we were greeted by the villa manager Tina who showed us around before we started our family holiday of sunshine and fun!

So was our villa truly family friendly? See our next entry…