Los Montesinos

Los Montesinos is the kind of place where the baker knows your order. It is small, Spanish, and unhurried, sitting on the plain just west of the Torrevieja salt lakes — close enough that the Laguna Rosa turns visibly pink on summer evenings.

Around the old centre, new villas have gone up over the last decade: single-storey, with private pools and solariums, priced well below what the same house would cost near the water. Torrevieja and Guardamar beaches are fifteen minutes by car.