Gandia is the first big resort you reach south of Valencia and its selling point is its 20km of clean golden beaches which are considered one of the best spots around for water sports, particularly windsurfing and sailing. The Playa de Venecia is a favourite, with excellent facilities. By night, it becomes one of the liveliest beach areas with a busy promenades of bars and restaurants.

A 15-minute bus ride from the enormous beach is the town itself, less known to visitors but a good place for shopping, with various markets.

Gandia and the surrounding area is becoming an increasingly popular place for second homes, with considerable new developments emerging out of town. Montepino is a salubrious area for new development, with large houses from around £170,000. Inland from Gandia you can find old townhouses in need of renovation for £30,000. Even large new houses near Gandia's golf course and tennis club cost little more than £100,000. If you do happen to be a keen golfer, this area makes for a perfect base for golfing holidays and chance to get good use out of your golf equipment so make sure you visit www.pargolfonline.co.uk for your golf kit before you head out to Spain.

Marxuquera, 5 minutes drive from Gandia town, is an upmarket area of huge country houses also offering a perfect location for second house hunting.

The local culture is very international and as expected, English is widely spoken. It is always preferrable to have a grasp of the local language and Spanish can be easily picked up. It is also worth remembering that Spain, as in the UK, has many regional dialects, and further northwards along the coast will take you to areas in which Catalan, is more widely spoken than the expected traditional Castillian Spanish. Catalan is said to be a mixture of Spanish and French and is used alongside Castillian in many areas. If you need to brush up on your French as well as your Spanish, you may be in need of the help of a few lessons of tuition, a local language exchange or the services of a translation agency, or Agence de traduction as they are known in French, to make sure there is no obstacle to you fitting in perfectly along this stretch of the Spanish coast.