COSTA Calida in the Mediterranean shoreline of Spain has the hottest climate in Spain. In fact, it has a temperature of about 36 degrees Celsius at maximum in the middle of summer. Therefore, Costa Calida in the province of Murcia which is only about 25 kilometers long is a very ideal place to stay during winter when everywhere else is too cold. During winter, temperatures here remain to be at 18 degrees Celsius or so. That’s in fact the average temperature during summer. It really is very hot in here – it is so hot that you can even skinny dip in the middle of the night and appreciates the glowing planktons all around you.

How I wish you can also experience what I’ve experienced. It really was an exhilarating experience I had when we came here in Costa Calida – all four of us Filipinos. We come from a tropical country and naturally, we want a place during winter that is not so cold. So we’ve opted for Costa Calida because we know that the temperature here is very hot by European standards. Whereas many people troop to Spain during summer and majority of them are either British or Scandinavian tourists, the people of the Philippines and other tropical countries including those ones in Africa would rather opt to go to Costa Calida. This is the only place along the Mediterranean stretch in Spain which is friendly to Asians so to speak.

The rest of the group in our excursion tour who come from Germany and France went to Palma del Mallorca. It is only four of us Filipinos as what I’ve stated earlier who proceeded to Costa Calida. We stayed here for more than a month because we have come to like it here. Besides, the food was excellent. It’s a mix of Mediterranean seafood and the best lamb meat in town as well as a sip of yummy Spanish sherry. And their Mediterranean seafood is sautéed in olive oil, said to be the healthiest cooking oil in the world because of its relatively low fat content.

When we first arrived here, we rented a vacation home all of us. The vacation home has a tropical feel because it is thatched with cogon as roof. But the British owners of the vacation home made sure that we are all safe because there’s a fire extinguisher and a fire exit in our homes. Even the toilets have fire exits. They have installed all these remedies because of the Madeleine McCann scandal that has rocked the whole Iberian Peninsula. And since what we have rented is a vacation home, it is already complete with a grill where we grill the Mediterranean seafood that we have bought directly from the fishermen.

I was amazed at first with the Spanish people and really admired them because they never refrigerate sea catch. Instead, they want it to be directly cooked. That’s why there’s an abundance of restaurants here in Costa Calida where customers can directly order lobsters and fishes from the aquarium and just let the chefs cook them in whatever menu or recipe you want them to be cooked. Service is really personalized. That is how the Calida tourism industry has flourished through the decades from the time of Francisco Franco.