| Coastal Cities Vacations and Luxury Travel Packages |
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COASTAL CITIES
And there are still other cities, cities that look out to sea and are confronted by the mirror image of their own beauty. Shoreside cities, elegant and charming, like those of the north: Santander, set in a bay which frames it in one of Spain's loveliest panoramas, with wide curving beaches and romantic seafront walks; Donostia-San Sebastián, alluring and aristocratic, which stretches along and towards the sea between its sheltering headlands and which, in its old Quarter, retains all the traditional festive fervour that makes it so unique; and Corunna, garden city of the Atlantic seaboard, with its white glassed-in frontages, elegant districts and bustling business sector.
Seafaring cities, which on the Mediterranean are pearls of irridescent light shimmering in a thousand colours and facets, where industrial and tourist industries thrive in fragrant and enchanting natural settings. Valencia is the prototype of the big Mediterranean city: fertile, productive, luminous and commercially astute. The monumental lives cheek by jowl with the traditional, and the city's prosperity is well epitomised in its explosive fiestas.
Alicante, capital of the Costa Blanca, one of the country's most important seaside resort areas, is a picturesque city which retains the appeal of its relaxed, unhurried lifestyle, while Palma, capital of the Balearic Isles, combines an old quarter, rich in Moorish remains and Gothic art, with a modern yacht basin, marina and tourist trade, and Ibiza, originally founded by the Carthaginians, is today a world-famous tourist destination, with a stunning Old Quarter of winding alleys and streets huddled inside its walls.
In the south, Malaga too is the focal point of another key tourist area, the Costa del Sol. A city of light and gaiety, it retains its commercial drive and ability to benefit from the twin bonanza afforded by its climate and the beautiful sweep of bay on which it stands. Melilla and Ceuta, sentinels perched on the other side of the Strait of Gibraltar, conserve the melting pot of cultures and religions within their walled bastions, whilst Cadiz, festive and forever linked with Antillean discovery, looks out onto the Atlantic from its bay, with that eclectic mix of architecture and lifestyles which is so much part of it. Similarly Atlantic in feel are the Canary Island towns of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and San Sebastián de La Gomera, towns that are quaint and modern by turn. |
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