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Part of Spain's Levante region, the Costa Cálida's
250 kilometres run from El Mojón beach in the north,
nearly in the province of Alicante, down to Águilas
in the south-west, before becoming the Costa Almeriense. And
the Costa Cálida shares many of the features associated
with Almería, such as its high temperatures (hence
the name), its 315 sunny days in the year, and its aridity.
The Costa Cálida receives less than 34 cm of rain a
year, so water has historically been in shortage, though you
wouldn't think so from the number of golf courses in the region.
The Costa
Cálida for Visitors
Águilas. The last town in Murcia
before you enter Almería, noteworthy for its beaches,
its historic carnival and its high average annual temperature
(25ºC).
Lorca. Yes, Lorca is very much an inland
city, but a number of fine beaches fall within its territory
as a borough, especially those to the south of Cabo Cope (yes,
Cape Cope, I'm not making it up).
Mazarrón. An attractive little place
within the municipal boundaries of which lie most of Murcia's
nudist beaches.
Cartagena. See Spain and Portugal for Visitors'
Murcia page for information on the city of Cartagena, but
the borough is much larger than that and includes a great
deal of the Murcian Mediterranean as well as the south of
the Mar Menor and of La Manga, including the fishing village
turned resort at Cabo de Palos, at the southern
end of La Manga.
Mar Menor
The Mar Menor is a huge (135 square kilometres) salt-water
lagoon, separated from the Mediterranean by the 24 kilometre
long La Manga del Mar Menor. The average depth of the Mar
Menor is four metres and its maximum seven which, combined
with its great extension, means that the seabed slopes very
gradually, and you have to get several hundred metres in before
the water is of any depth. The Mar Menor's salinity, furthermore,
provides buoyancy so, all in, all it is one of the safest
places to swim in the world. The mineral-rich waters of the
Mar Menor are supposed to have therapeutic effects, so the
area has a significant spa tourism industry. The sludge in
the salt pans of Lo Pagán to the north of the Mar Menor
is also credited with beneficial effects on the health, so
there are often dozens of people wallowing in it at any one
time (plus, it cools you down in the August heat).
That the Mar Menor is under severe ecological pressure is
undeniable. It was once, for example, thick with seahorses,
but these have largely been replaced by jellyfish, which can
on occasions be so thick in the water as to make bathing impossible.
Whether this is due to tourist development is more arguable,
though. Development around the Mar Menor has mainly been low-rise,
with the great exception of La Manga, whose high-rise hotels
and apartment blocks jar greatly on the eye from the other
side of the lagoon. But take a look at an aerial photograph
and you will see that there is, in fact, a great deal of space
between these buildings, however aesthetically upsetting they
may be, and I suspect that leached nitrates from farmland
around the Mar Menor, together with global warming, are more
of a danger than tourism.
Places around the Mar Menor include La Manga del
Mar Menor, of course, the tremendous tourist complex
of La Manga Club, and the islands in the
south of the lagoon. Los Alcázares,
San Javier and San Pedro del Pinatar
are the Mar Menor's interior, "land-locked" municipalities
(though San Pedro also has a Mediterranean shoreline), and
are most popular with Spanish tourists, particularly families
with very young children (this is the perfect place to teach
them to swim) and middle-aged and elderly Spaniards seeking
relief from their various aches and pains.
El Mojón. A former fishing village
on San Pedro del Pinatar's coast, now a small, entirely modern
resort with a fabulous beach, the last one in Murcia before
you enter the province of Alicante in the south of the Valencia
region.
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