Category: Driving Holidays

Biker Friendly Accommodation in Spain

Motorbike Friendly Accommodation in Spain

Motorbike guests on the way home! Spain is a very biker friendly country with a tremendously good road infrastructure – and far fewer cars than in the UK or many other countries in Europe.  This makes for an ideal place to enjoy a ride on your motorbike if you are a resident here and of course a great holiday destination for a motorbike road trip. We have always been pleased to welcome guests on a motorbike holiday and have had many such visitors in the past – often visiting us several times.  We were therefore very pleased when we received a booking from Tony and his friend Dave who wanted to stay with us as part of their trip back to England, after having enjoyed a biking holiday in the area to the south of Alicante. They had spent time with their wives in a villa in Alicante province, having crossed over to Spain via the ferry to Santander and biked direct down from there.  Once at their destination, they hired a car for their wives to use during their visit, whilst Tony and Dave enjoyed taking their bikes out on the open and uncrowded roads in the area Once…

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2015 Year in Review

bed and breakfast accommodation with pool

Villa Florencia Gandia 2015 has been a busy year for us all at Villa Florencia, with a constant succession of guests both old and new. This marks our 9th full year of welcoming visitors into our home and it is great to see so many of them coming back to us year after year. Our general mix of guests this year was very much along the usual lines, with a large number coming (not surprisingly) for the sunshine and warmth that is not to be found in the northern parts of Europe so easily, but also many coming for a variety of other reasons. Over the years we have been able to promote ourselves to certain “niche” markets that all help to make Villa Florencia an appealing place to stay and enjoy what the local area has to offer The year started with beautiful weather – which developed into a very hot summer – and this early sunshine encouraged our first rock-climbing visitors to stay with us. The whole area of the Costa Blanca is a well-known destination for climbers in the cooler months of the year and it is always a pleasure to have them stay with us here….

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Las Fallas & Easter Fiestas

Las Fallas Fiesta in Gandia! “Las Fallas” is one of the biggest fiestas of the year in the Valencia region – it’s the one that everyone has seen pictures about, where the different districts of each town build huge wood and papier-mâché effigies about local events and then they all get burnt to the ground on the night of March 19th – St. Joseph’s day. The fiesta is a huge attraction for tourists, both Spanish and foreign, and we were delighted to welcome Sandy and her husband David back to us for a second year to enjoy the preparations and festivities.  They chose to stay in our self-catering apartment again as they found last year that it suited them perfectly.  They combined their accommodation there with taking breakfast and dinner in the dining terrace with the other guests, so had the advantages of both.  As far as Valencian residents are concerned, Fallas marks the end of the old season – essentially winter – and the beginning of the spring and all things new.  It always culminates on the same date, March 19th, and so also marks the beginning of the build-up to the most important time of year of all…

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Autumn Sunshine Activity Holidays

Autumn Sunshine Activity Holidays! The heat of summer may be over, but the weather continues to be beautiful, with lots of sunshine and very mild temperatures. It is at this time of year – and also of course in the spring – when there are plenty of opportunities to enjoy all the other delights of this part of the Costa Blanca than just the summer seaside attractions. Lucy and Ashley recently returned to us for their third visit, and they take great pleasure in participating in outdoor pastimes and sports – something which this area of the Costa Blanca offers the fringe season visitor in abundance. They stayed with us for just over a week in our self-catering apartment and made the most of their time getting out and about doing lots of different activities as well as some conventional sightseeing in Valencia city itself. Because temperatures have remained so mild, it is still very pleasant to swim in the sea so Lucy & Ashley decided one day to combine two of their interests into one all-day experience. They had made arrangements to go horse riding at stables near the beach, and so went for an escorted ride along the…

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Autumn Sunshine Holidays

Autumn Sunshine Holidays in 2013 We have been delighted to welcome a steady succession of guests this year who have been taking advantage of the beautiful weather we have been experiencing here on the Costa Blanca. The summer this year has been a very long-lasting one with daytime temperatures in October in the high twenties or occasionally even the low thirties. Night temperatures are of course lower now, which means that the swimming pool is only usable by the more hardy of our guests, but there is still a great opportunity for getting a late tan and storing up some sunshine before having to endure the winter months ahead in northern Europe. There is still plenty to do here during such lovely warm days, and of course the sea temperature is still holding up well for those guests who are beach enthusiasts. And once the novelty of sitting and enjoying the sunshine at this time of year has worn off a bit, the slightly cooler temperatures mean that our guests can take part in outdoor activities which might be uncomfortable during the really hot months of the summer. Sue and Gareth for example came for a few days relaxation in…

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Family Holidays Costa Blanca

Family Holidays Costa Blanca We usually have several Italian guests during the course of the summer season, but this year we had not seen any – until we received a booking from Stefano and his wife Elisabetta, who wanted to come to us from Rome in early September for just over a week. They were a family of four, and when they arrived we were pleased to welcome them, along with their two teenage daughters Pamela and Chiara. They wanted to come to our part of Spain for a family holiday and to see what this part of the Costa Blanca had to offer – it was not a part of the country they knew well, but it is one they thought they would like. They had done their homework before leaving Italy and had a tentative itinerary worked out of all the sights they wanted to see during their visit. The Costa Blanca is a great part of Spain for a family holiday as there is something for everyone, and in the summer of course the wonderful beaches come into their own. Most days they went on an excursion to one of the towns along the coast, as well…

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