Costa Blanca

Choosing Valencia is not the same as choosing Marbella.

Choosing Barcelona is not the same as choosing Costa Blanca.

And often, what attracts someone to one place over another says a great deal about what they want from life in Spain.

To explore that, I'm joined by Bernie Walker, CEO of Think Spain, one of the country's leading property portals for international buyers.

But why Valencia? When we moved out here, we wanted our children to be bilingual.

um so we want we wanted to stay away from uh the expat hotspots yeah as i say this you know that was just one of our prerequisites i thought it'd be easy to bring them up bilingually in somewhere where obviously at school they're not speaking english all the time they'll be speaking spanish um and their friends would be predominantly spanish etc etc so um we chose valencia which as you say uh Going back 26 years, we definitely didn't have that many foreigners here.

Obviously, the further you went south, then yes, once you get to the Costa Blanca, which is just over the border of the Alente province, then things change, you know.

So, and we chose Valencia.

Good afternoon.

Welcome along Across the Tracks, live and direct from the Costa Blanca.

With David's permission, I am hijacking the microphone, and we're gonna have a little bit of a conversation so you can get to know more about the gentleman while he's here.

So you've got your mic there, Dave.

I know English.

John knows a lot more about the Costa Blanca than I do because he lives there and he does all his tours.

Hi, John.

And he says to people, look, you know, I'm not taking you to the countryside if you won't learn Spanish because there's no point me telling you to buy a house there.

So I think he's quite, I think he's quite, um, quite forceful.

You'd have to get him on your podcast.

He does tours of the Costa Blanca.

You know, people say, well, this is my budget.

All expats, most of them.

And, uh, And what part of Spain is this? It's on the Costa Blanca.

So it's about an hour south of Alicante.

And we go out for meals.

So lots going on, lots to get hot under the collar, lots for the BTA to do.

And before we kind of finish up and leave on a slightly more... buoyant and a happy note we have our conference coming up in Alicante or Costa Blanca in about two weeks time we are going to do a special podcast in about a week's time and Andrew will already be on result I will be on my on my way just talking around what people can expect but before we do Andrew is moderating aren't you you're ready to go on that you are the the man on stage this year

yeah ready to go is probably a strong word Clive that's what you told

me yeah

Julian Alvarez, which will probably be a bit of a talking point for this one coming up.

Fallen Rock Thursday, and it's 34 degrees on the Costa Blanca.

Now, we all hate you, don't we, there, as well.

So, touch wood...

Yeah, it's an embarrassment of riches, really.

It's on the Costa Blanca.

It's about an hour south of Valley County.

And I think if we took a 20-mile radius, there would probably be in excess of 30 golf courses that you could go to.

You always do us proud there, you really do.

Enjoy your time over in Costa Blanca.

And I'm sorry I played the wrong track.

You did a few takes, didn't you? It's always a pleasure to hear from you.