WEATHER LORE

BENIDORM

Since finding out that August is often our wettest month I’ve decided to spend as much of that month as possible in warmer, drier ‘climes’. I write this while lying on a sun bed beside a pool in Benidorm. The biggest and brashest resort on Spain’s Costa Blanca, Benidorm has had a bad press over recent years.

Yes, apartment blocks and hotels tussle for elbow room as they reach higher and higher. Yes, the neon lights, pubs, clubs, discos and fish and chip shops remind you more of Blackpool than Barcelona. But, let me offer a few comments in praise of humble Benidorm.

Protected from cooler northerly winds by the Sierra Helada mountains and facing south over the mild Mediterranean Sea, Benidorm has its own micro climate. This makes it milder in winter and warmer in summer than almost anywhere else on the Spanish Costa’s.

Benidorm has a mean annual temperature above 20 degrees Celsius, over 3000 hours of sunshine occurring on over 300 sunny days a year, and only around 500 mm of rainfall! Yes, in Spain the rain really does seem to “fall mainly on the plain.”

In August sea temperatures reach 25 degrees Celsius, and even in winter the Mediterranean off Benidorm stays above 13 degrees Celsius! This helps to make the resort popular all year round as the warm sea keeps winter temperatures mild.

Add to that two immaculate beaches. The sun rises to the east over the Playa Lavante…...

…...and sets to the west beyond Playa Poniente.

Oranges and lemons abound. Take a trip on the ‘Lemon Express’. Visit Terra Mitica one of the largest theme parks in Europe.

But most of all enjoy the sun. “Waiter, more ice! Por favour.”

Oh darn it!

The sun’s just disappeared behind another tower block!