Travel Writing

Jill has written for the Airtours Group (Direct Holidays, Airtours and MyTravel) for the past two years. As well as the usual ‘resort-reports’, her articles have covered a range of subjects including Toys to Take, Seasonal Affective Disorder Syndrome, Counting Down to Holidays, Top Ten Items in Your Hand Luggage, Beach Cred, Learning the Lingo and Holiday Feng Shui.

Jill has also written for the recently-launched website www.simonseeks.com

Learning the Lingo

We Brits are some of the worst at making the effort to communicate when we’re abroad. We assume that everyone else will speak English and we become exasperated when we can’t make ourselves understood. Is it so hard to learn a foreign language? We explore some of the methods available.

One of the most obvious ways is to attend evening or weekend classes. They are worth considering as they’re comparatively inexpensive, you’re amongst like-minded people and you can get immediate feedback from your teacher. Find out if the class will suit you - is it beginners or advanced? Will it lead to a qualification or is it a conversation class? The pace of a weekly class can be too slow for some, and the long stretch between lessons can dampen anyone’s enthusiasm. If the thought of trekking out every week in the cold, wet and dark fills you with dread then home study could be your best option. Whether you go for a full-blown course or just a book/tape combination will depend on how thoroughly you want to get to grips with the language, as well as your budget and commitment to learning. Some require you to sit down at the table and spread out your work for an hour or so, on a regular basis. Others are more portable - you can listen in the car, bus or train, and any books are designed to fit in a handbag or pocket. Mind you, don’t try practicing your pronunciation on the train... If you decide to go for a correspondence course, check whether there’ll be homework deadlines. It’s too easy to leave the box lurking neglected in the corner.

Having private lessons is not just for kids. One-to-one tuition with a native speaker is very effective, if you get a good teacher. It can be expensive, so see if you can have a trial lesson before you commit.

Whichever way you choose, it’s important to back up your learning. Newspapers and magazines are fairly easily obtainable, and if you have satellite or digital TV you can get some foreign channels there. Having a penfriend’s great, and a good way to get conversational vocab, particularly if you can call each other occasionally. The bonus is a contact in your favourite country, and a pal to visit next time you go. When you do go, put your learning into practice!

Beach Cred

OK, so you’ve been working out and you reckon you look good, but if you’re not careful you could ruin your beach cred at a stroke. Follow our top ten tips to stay cool.

1. Test out your cossie for transparency before you go - jump in the bath or shower with it on.

2. Girls; make sure you look real smooth on the beach by ‘de-fuzzing’ a few days beforehand.

3. Get in the swim of things with a few strokes at the local baths in the run up to the holidays. Unless you want to be rescued a la Baywatch by a good lookin’ lifeguard, that is...

4. Take a trendy pair of beach shoes with you. There’s nothing more uncool than hopping over hot sand in bare feet.

5. Guys; ditch the medallions, they’re too ‘seventies’.

6. Check your shades fit straight.

7. If you’re taking music onto the beach, keep it low. Better still, use a personal hi fi. Just don’t start nodding, or singing aloud.

8. If you’re playing ball games, steer clear of the folks catching the rays. They’ll think you’re anything but cool.

9. Don’t get sunburn. Looking like a lobster doesn’t look cool - it looks painful.

10. When the wind gets up, pin stuff down, so you won’t have to go chasing off down the beach.

Beautiful Benidorm.

‘Spain is fiesta country’, said the cab driver as he whisked us to our hotel. He was speaking of the next public holiday - less than a month away from the last one.

Perhaps it’s because of all that sunshine they get! Benidorm, however, gets more than most. Whilst the rest of Spain may occasionally have dull weather, the Costa Blanca is likely to be sunny all year round. This is because Benidorm has its own micro climate due to the mountains which surround it. An hour’s drive along the coast in either direction does see a greener landscape.

We spent a week’s holiday in Benidorm - new to all of us - and we were pleasantly surprised by how family-friendly it was. Beaches are wide, clean and easily accessible, with fine sand which is cleaned and levelled every night, when everyone’s safely tucked up. They’re easy to get on to - for the most part it’s just one step down onto the sand - wheelchair or buggy access is no great hassle. There are wooden walkways every hundred yards or so, so that you can get right onto the sand, and foot-showers nearby mean that getting cleaned up and off for dinner is just as easy. The sea’s mostly calm, with no rocks or pebbles to speak of. Michael played for hours at the edge of the water, building sandcastles, roads and tunnels in the wet sand.

If you spend any time at all on the beach you won’t fail to notice the local pastime. Muscle beach it ain’t - but locals and Spanish holidaymakers spend hours trolling up and down the shoreline or along the promenade, and all for the good of their health. It’s great for an all round tan, makes for healthy feet and of course it’s all good exercise. Kids can limber up on one of the huge climbing frames on the beach. You can’t miss them - they’re made of red rope and look like great macramé pyramids. Michael (aged 8) thought they were great, but he was a little worried that one of the other kids might have spoken to him in Spanish (gasp!) and so he didn’t play on them as much as he would have liked.

There’s no denying that Benidorm has become built up, but the tower blocks are not architecturally unpleasant. Many have pale pastel colouring and decorative formats and no two seem the same. One in particular, the Bali 3, can be seen from miles around, and no wonder - it’s over 50 storeys high.

In January and February, the surrounding area is transformed as the almond trees come into flower. Nispera is also grown here - we know it as the Loquat, although it hasn’t been seen much in the UK so far. Tasting like a cross between an apricot and a peach, one of these small yellow fruits has as much vitamin C as five oranges. Of course, you could always try the nispera liqueur or a range of honeys.

Puig Campana mountain, with its missing chunk, can be seen from almost anywhere in Benidorm. Fishermen use its remarkable outline as a navigation aid. Legend has it that a giant tore a piece out of the top to make a ring for his lady. When he found out that she had been unfaithful to him, he threw the rock into the bay in a fury. That rock is now known as Peacock island. Geologists have worked out the size of the island, and the size of the missing chunk, and the measurements match up. The make-up of the rock is the same, too.

Where you stay in the resort depends what sort of holiday you like. Are you after ‘home from home’, with Sunday dinners, fish and chips as well as the inevitable ‘Geordie Bar’ or two? If so, then the purpose-built area around Playa de Levante (sunrise beach) is right for you. Plenty of shops, bars, restaurants and loadsa nightlife to keep you busy. If you’d rather have a more sedate holiday rubbing shoulders with the locals, then try for the Playa de Poniente (sunset beach) end. It’s more open, and more, well, Spanish. There are enough restaurants and cafe’s to eat somewhere different every night, but if you find yourself wanting a change, then hop on a bus to the other end of the resort. It couldn’t be easier - it’s all one fare along the beach front whatever the length of your journey, and the buses run every few minutes until late.

There’s plenty to see in the area if you want to spend time away from the beach. Local transport is easy peasy, with both buses and a network of trains at your disposal, and there are plenty of trips to book. One of our favourites was the Lemon Express, an ancient rattly wooden train which snakes through lemon groves and mountains as far as Gata de Gorgos where they make guitars and wicker work. Some beautiful views on the way. Don’t worry about taking photo’s on the return journey - the music is playing, the sparkling wine is flowing, and the sun is shining, too. Just sit back and enjoy.

We also checked out Terra Mitica theme park. Once you're through the gates, you could be in another country. It’s divided into five zones; Ancient Egypt, Rome, Greece, Iberia and The Islands, all faithful reproductions in the original style. It must be one of the most fun ways to follow the National Curriculum! Michael certainly recognised things he’d learned about in school. Restaurants and souvenir shops reflect the culture in each zone, and there really is something for everyone. Ever had your kids queue up for a ride only to be disappointed because they didn’t meet the height restrictions? Here, they have scaled down versions of the ‘big’ rides so that no-one misses out. Of all the rides, though (there just wasn’t time to go on all of them, because there are so many) Michael’s favourite was the ‘Duck’ roundabout. Probably because he could control the height at which it travelled round, and therefore upset his mum, who’d volunteered to go in with him.

Wheelchair access is good, and there are many rides which the disabled can go on. There’s buggy and wheelchair hire, and of course you can buy the essential rain cape if you plan to go on any of the water rides.

The park is not garish in any way, and it blends in well with the landscape. We made a day of it, but as we left there were people still coming in, obviously planning to make a night of it!

Another place worth seeing is Guadalest. This fortified village-on-a-mountain is reached through a cleft in the rock and has, quite literally, some breathtaking views. It also has more museums per square foot than you could shake a stick at. All have only a nominal entrance fee - how many can you visit whilst you’re there? Don’t miss the Museo de Microminiatures, featuring Manuel Ussà’s amazing miniature works of art. By miniature, we mean almost microscopic - all the exhibits are viewed through a magnifying glass or microscope. After you’ve seen this, you’ll believe a camel really can pass through the eye of a needle! As we’re talking small, the museum of ‘Bethlehem’ is a labour of love well worth seeing. It’s a model village, but quite an extraordinary one. Real stone, bricks and wood have been used in the authentic construction of the buildings, even down to real clay roof tiles and bonsai trees. Tiny rivers, fountains and even a little train, all replicas of the real thing, make this a unique exhibition. All this has taken one man, Antonio Marco, 15 years to build. At the other end of the scale, on the top floor there is a giant nativity scene weighing 12 tons.

We also had the chance to re-enact the Timotei advert, as our guide described it, as we visited the Algar Waterfalls up in the mountains. Not a trip to do in strappy sandals, but do take your cossie if you’re so inclined - it’s a trek up over the rocks, by the side of the stream, and there are places where you can take a dip with the fishes. There’s a train museum in the area, as well as botanical gardens.

There are quite a few animal parks around Benidorm, both marine and safari, and there are plenty of shopping trips going, including an excursion to the Lladro factory in Valencia. There’s pony trekking, a downhill bike ride, glass-bottom boat trips to Peacock Island, cave visits, quite a few museums (including a wax museum) and at night there’s an abundance of bars and clubs, not forgetting Benidorm Palace

Altea market is great for leather goods - and you can get there by bus, train or even boat. Other souvenirs to look out for are nougat (made with honey and those famous almonds), choriso (sausages), chocolate, wickerwork and lacy tablecloths. You’re bound to find something to remind you of your holiday in the sun!