Spain - Costa del Sol

My parents have an apartment up in the hills of Calahonda, mid way between Fuengirola on the east and Marbella to the west, in a municipality called Mijas. Málaga lies about 50 minutes drive to the east and has the most convenient airport, whilst Gibraltar is just over an hour in the other direction. As a consequence of having visited a few times in the first few years of the decade I am fairly familiar with the region, and I love it.

Travel arrangements

Flights

I have worked in IT with the travel industry for several years, since the early 90s. Until being made redundant in March of 2003, I worked for Avro plc (a seat-only tour operator, operating as part of the same group of companies as the more familiar Cosmos brand, and who consistently win the trade's own awards for best seat-only operator with almost embarrassing regularity). During my employment there I had access to up-to-the-minute deals on seats which made the travelling aspect easy and relatively inexpensive.

I might be partisan in this, but I recommend booking through a tour operator rather than direct with the "no frills" carriers for the simple reasons of comfort and quality of service. There just is no comparison. If you don't object to being herded like cattle, and money is your only concern, I'm sure that the economy airlines have something to offer. For me the flying is an integral part of the vacation, as much tobe enjoyed as being at the destination, and these things matter.nbsp; You get what you pay for (or more accurately you don't get what you don't pay for).

Whilst I'm understandably not quite so enthusiastic about my former employers as I once was, they are still the best in the business, and have a history of repeatedly winning industry awards. Flights can be booked with Avro direct on the web site (the early implementation of which, I might add, I was directly involved with), or on any day of the year except Christmas Day, Boxing Day, or New Year's Day by calling 0870 458 2841 from the UK. It is also possible to make availability enquiries by contacting the reservations desk by e-mail. You might as well book with Avro, because unless you booked with one or two of the major competitors, if you book a charter flight the odds are very high that it's an Avro seat being re-sold anyway, although it would be unethical to give examples. (And in case you were wondering - no I don't get a bean out of making this recommendation.)

Car hire

With a package holiday it is perfectly feasible to book the holiday and with the exception of excursions or occasional taxi or bus ride stay within walking distance of your accommodation. In independent accommodation such as the developments at Calahonda where building ranges back from the coast for a couple of kilometers up the hillside to an altitude of 200 or 300 metres it simply is not practical to manage without a car. There is, supposedly, a "road train" which winds its way up and down the hill providing public transport, but it is typically Spanish in both its regularlity and reliability.

It is entirely possible to hire a car on the spot on arrival at the airport at Málaga, but it tends to be cheaper and more convenient to make arrangements in advance. I have dealt with two companies - Santamed, who do very good deals, even in the height of summer, but who unfortunately do not have a web site, and Regamallorca with whom I booked my car in a hurry Christmas 2002, online. (Again I receive no benefit for offering these recommendations.)

Santamed are based on Merseyside in the UK and can be contacted on +44 (0) 1925 220806. Regamallorca are actually based (as the name suggests) in Mallorca, but can provide car hire pretty much anywhere in Spain.

The region

The Costa del Sol (which as might be obvious translates literally to "the Sun coast") lies to the west of Málaga and east of Gibraltar.

Regrettably, e-mail purporting to be from sites giving away free (or free trial) accounts (such as Hotmail, Bigfoot or AOL) will be automatically refused delivery. On balance e-mail from such sites received here is over-whelmingly junkmail.