ALL of Spain is real Spain, even the Rincon de Loix in Benidorm.

The road still get swept, drains, telephone installation, and other infrastructures are still maintained, the fire brigade, ambulance and police are still on call. Bank employees and coucil officials still do their days work, even though the majority of the people around maybe on holiday, or short term residents

Yeah I agree

A commom misconception about tourist places, is that it is not real Spain because it may be full of Brit bars, or German restaurants.

What people forget is that there is a sub structure keeping these places running, and most of that work is done by Spanish.

To suggest it is not real in someway is doing them a disservice.

Its all real unless your on LSD

It may be hard to find your real Spain, if it even exists

Just be satisfied you dont have to live in the UK

Yes fair enough

I guess it is a separate point to say that there are people I know who lived in Spain for 10 years who may as well have been living in the Middle East for all they actually know about Spain!

I also dont like when British people say "oh that's typically Spanish" e.g. like the "typical white Spanish villages" or the "typical Spanish food".

Well in most of Spain there aren't any white villages. We had some friends visit from Catalunya and they'd never visited a white village in their lives

The ignorance about Spain from some British people is because while they live in Spain they do not have Spanish neighbours or friends or watch Spanish TV etc. Even their kids don't go to Spanish schools.

A couple who live in the CDS were telling me of their trip to Barcelona and how they were surprised that Catalans were as dark skinned as Mexicans You cant make this stuff up but I've heard it all...

the world is a big mixing pot and theres some of everywhere in everywhere! We've got an Irish bar in Alhaurin De La Torre run by Spanish, a Lebanese bar run by Mexicans and an Indian restaurant run by Brits. Then there are the chinese shops, Morrocan shops...... Even the "typically Spanish" restaurants serve burgers and chips to the "typically Spanish" and of course then you have Macdonalds/burgerkings in every town........ Its progress apparently!??

Jo xxx

Rincoln de Loix in Benidorm got me thinking. I stayed there once in one of the Acuarium blocks while looking around, I was about 20 floors up.

One night a coach load of English holidaymakers arrived, all middle-aged men, and they were accommodated in apartments all around the one I was in, spread over at least three floors.

Needless to say, they all went out drinking and came back in the small hours and woke me up. They were all shouting at each other from the various balconies, I’ve heard some bad language in my time, but this was the vilest stuff I’ve ever had to listen to.

I had a week of it and on their last night it was worse than ever. I finally snapped and from the safe darkness of my little apartment shouted back at them.

There was an ominous silence and then the lifts started moving. Shouting men were patrolling each floor and it was clear they were looking for the person who had insulted them. I heard doors being forced off the hinges and when the bell rang, answered.

Four men in underpants were standing outside, all with knives. They asked me whether I was the person who had shouted at them. I replied in my best Spanish that I thought it was an Englishman who lived in an apartment three doors away, which I knew was empty.

When the howling mob left, I bolted my door and got dressed, hoping to get to the fire escape if they returned. They didn’t, but the crashing noises went on for quite some time.

I walked past the apartment three doors away the next morning. It didn’t have a door left and had been totally trashed. So had the lifts and I had to walk down 20 floors.

I could see the coach waiting outside and sat in the nearby café to watch these monsters board their bus. I noticed that two burly men seemed to be leading them on to the coach, and as they looked reasonably normal I went up to them just before the coach left for the airport.

The two men were mental nurses who had accompanied a coach load of patients from a secure institution in England for a week’s holiday in Rincoln de Loix.

It is nice to know that the taxpayers moeny is put to good use. But I think that now RDL is a bit too cheap, they are probably going to the Caribean for their hols now,..............