calidafeature

The Costa Cálida is the coastline of the province of Murcia, including the Mar Menor,

a vast, near-landlocked salt-water lagoon. Its attractions for visitors include the
fact that it has largely escaped the overdevelopment which has spoiled much
of the Spanish Mediterranean. Even in Murcia's most exploited area, the
Mar Menor, international tourism is limited to La Manga, the strip of land,
more or less a sandspit, which separates it from the Mediterranean,
and the La Manga Club, the home of three of the best golf courses in the region.

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

Cartagena is small city with a port that is a favourite stop for many Mediterranean
cruise ships.
There is a great deal of history associated with Cartagena dating back to Roman times
and
there are several buildings of significant architectural interest. The Borough of
Cartagena
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.

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,
although it is suspected 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 residential and sports 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.