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What is Benidorm all about?
Let’s find out.
Oh, I love Benidorm it has everything.
If you want you’ve got the quiet family time, you’ve got nice evening meals, you’ve got the party lifestyle,
we have the beach. Benidorm caters for everybody.
You know UP your life.
Benidorm is Florida of Europe.
It’s too beautiful here to go back.
Welcome to Costa Blanca where we find Benidorm between Valencia and Alicante.
Benidorm is best known as the nightlife party city of the Costa Blanca North.
With over 70,000 inhabitants, it has the most high-rise buildings per capita in the world.
There is more to it than just a party life:
beautiful sandy beaches,
theme parks,
old town
and great shopping.
Until the 1950s Benidorm was a small fishing village.
As the fishing industry began to decline the town council focused more and more on developing Benidorm
as a tourist attraction.
At that time the swimming suit “bikini” was banned by General Franco’s regime,
And in 1953 to increase the number of tourists, the mayor of Benidorm took his little Vespa scooter
and he went to meet Franco to get the approval and he surprisingly got it.
Today Benidorm is Spain’s biggest holiday resort with 5 million tourists arriving per year.
And now let’s visit a new bar.
Maria, you are Romanian, what are you doing here in Benidorm?
I always wanted to live in a nice, warm country.
I’ve been working in Holland for a few years and then my dream was to have my own bar.
I’ve been working there in one, so I’ve been saving some money so I’ve just decided to move to a nice, warm
and beautiful country close to the sea.
How is this bar different than other bars in Benidorm?
Well, I’m here …
I’m here, that makes a difference.
It’s gonna be a family bar.
I want that people feel that when they are here and where everybody have fun and chill at the same time
that everybody feels at home.
So everybody can do what they want.
Just feel good.
Congratulations.
Thank you very much.
Are you planning to go back to Romania or Holland?
Ahem…for holiday, but not for living.
It’s too beautiful here to go back.
And what do you like about Benidorm?
Benidorm has a bit of everything, has a bit of craziness, has a bit of chilling.
It’s a modern city.
Maria, we are in Benidorm Poniente.
How is it different than other parts of Benidorm?
I like it more here because it’s more quiet here, more elegant, better restaurants, better chillout places,
better beaches,
more space.
People are different.
I like that there are local people here, not that many tourists.
I like everybody, I like every person but I like Spanish people also, I like the language, I like speaking to them
in their language.
So, here you get to experience a little bit more authentic Benidorm?
Yes.
Yes, that’s true, yes.
You can also take a stroll in historic old town of Benidorm.
If you want the genuine Spanish experience you must visit the Tapas Alley.
Let’s take a walk.
El Cisne means swan?
In English, yes.
Tell me little bit about it…
El Cisne was a very, luxury restaurant many, many years ago,
and the terrace where the live music is today was a pond with swans in it.
El Cisne is very famous of the way that it is, because of the trees and the plants outside,
and it’s just different than any other place that you will see in Benidorm and people when the come here
they come once and they come back and back and back because it has just some special ambiance that
I can’t even understand myself, they love the music, the dancing, the antique shop, the market place and
everybody just comes and then they have a beautiful afternoon dancing and singing.
Hello, how are you?
Jaap tell me about Euro Clínica Rincón.
I founded Euro Clínica Rincón in 1998 with a vision of having a medical center and outpatient clinic
where doctors are working together, treating all kinds of patients with all kinds of machines, we provide doctors
to get the right diagnosis.
The only thing that we demand from a doctor who is working with us is that at least he speaks the
Spanish language and the English language.
Most of the doctors working in this clinic are Dutch actually.
What is unique about this clinic?
We are very personal with a patients, the patients feel they are more or less at home.
They feel comfortable.
They get a proper time.
I remember from Holland every 5 minutes the doctor has a new patient.
We don’t work here on the clock.
If the patient needs a 15 minutes, he gets 15 minutes.
If the patient needs 30 minutes, they get 30 minutes.
And that’s what the patients like, and...
we built quite a good name in the past 17 years.
What kind of services do you offer here?
We offer here a general practitioner.
It always starts with a general practitioner,
and from there he refers the patients to our medical specialists if necessary.
Then we have a cardiologist.
She is coming every week and doing all kind of necessary tests.
I see you also have home care?
Yes, we also do home care.
This is a business we started 6 years ago because here in Benidorm a lot of elderly people come and that's also
the reason why we started here in Benidorm.
The main reason that we can exist is the language, the communication.
“I’m going to print it and you get the copy to take home…”
Because communication is the most important thing between a doctor and a patient.
We have general dentistry in our clinic, that means general dentist performs almost every thinkable
treatment in the dentures.
Now, I will show you the room where we make the X-rays.
Here you see a fracture of the wrist
and here is a picture of the same wrist after the operation.
Almost all our clients are elderly people who like the sun in wintertime here in Spain, comparing to your country,
for instance, and my country, where it’s very cold during the wintertime and here it’s always nice.
That’s also the reason why I found Spain because I saw elderly people living much more than they do in Holland,
for instance.
They are always in their homes, sheltering from the cold. And here you see people active on the streets,
on the beach, everywhere, so that’s what I...
I like most.
I think you can say Benidorm is Florida of Europe.
Lucy tell me about Daytona’s.
There are 2 right?
Yes, we have two Daytona’s, we are open to any kinds of groups, hens, stag parties,
also to families, to kids, anybody is welcome to come it’s a party lifestyle, you can also come for coffees,
for a quiet, relaxing drink on the terrace, it’s a great place to come for everything.
All year long…
All year long.
We have live music every day.
What do you like about Benidorm?
Oh, I love Benidorm, it has everything.
If you want you’ve got quiet family time, you’ve got nice evening meals, you’ve got the party lifestyle,
we have the beach, you have everything.
Benidorm caters for everybody.
José, explain a little bit about Taita...
Taita... we opened 14 years ago.
And we opened as a creperie.
I went to Britain and learned to cook crepes,
and we opened as a creperie.
But I got hooked and little by little I learnt how to cook.
And we currently cook native and mediterranean cuisines.
We kept on cooking crepes, though.
We have specialized in native cuisine.
We cook... we also cook author's cuisine, but...
we cook types of rice.
Types of rice nobody cooks because they are native,
and the recipes were our grandmother's.
And the restaurant is quite famous, right?
Well...
Plenty of pictures.
Oh, well, yes. Some famous people have come, but many clients are pictured.
For me clients are the most important thing.
Yes, yes.
More than famous people.
And wine?
Wine. This is our wine menu, so... we also have a paper menu, but I like people seeing and touching the
product, the wines. With the menu people only ask for the wines they know, and this way you come, you see
a bottle, for example, Cuatro Pasos, which is a Bierzo wine.
You see wine from Alicante.
You can see how much the wines cost.
And it's our menu. A more physical menu.
And very unique.
Exactly.
And why is Benidorm the place to live and visit?
Well, Benidorm is a city... it's a town, but it's a city
that has its fans
and the opposite. There are people who do not like Benidorm at all.
But I can only tell you good things about Benidorm because my grandparents were from here, my parents
are from here
so, for me Benidorm is wonderful.
There are people who may not like it, but Benidorm is a very open-minded city for all tourists.
“Spice of Life.”
Tell me about your restaurant.
This isn't the typical Indian Pakistani restaurant. It’s not only hot and spicy, it is all up to you, you want it mild,
medium , hot, we can make it.
Why the name “Spice of life”?
The spice of life is a spice to up your life…
That’s spice of life.
When did you get to Benidorm?
Well, I’ve been in Spain for about 25 years and we started this restaurant in Benidorm in 1991.
Why did you choose Benidorm?
It’s great, you know, it’s a huge tourist place and people come from around the world,
and specially the British people they love the curries and even Spanish now.
We have now 50% Spanish customers, they come from all around Spain from Madrid, Valencia,
North sides, we have customers from all over Spain, they love curries.
And it’s a family restaurant?
Exactly, it’s like a family here.
There are over 50 fiestas taking place in Benidorm all year round.
Here you can see the famous Easter parade.
Bay radio is the biggest English radio station in Spain and we’ve been broadcasting for the last 12 years
and we’ve been growing bigger and bigger every year.
We now broadcast all the way from Denia all the way down to Cartagena all the Mediterranean coast.
We’ve got an amazing range of DJs and presenters and a great team behind us producing some of the best
radio around here really.
“It’s Tuesday morning and we’ve been inundated with…”
We work with some of the biggest brands who advertise with Bay radio
and use us to you know get their message out there.
And you have been here for how many years?
I started here in 2005 the first day that Bay radio started.
It’s a great place to live and a great place to work and the great place to come on holiday as well;
it’s got everything.
As you know Bay radio caters for an older audience of 35, 40 plus,
and now our new station, Overseas FM, it’s catering for a younger audience from the ages of about 18 coming up
to about 35, 40, so now we feel that we can cater for the whole spectrum of advertisers and businesses
around this area.
“….Watch now on UPnowCostaBlanca.com…”
Jamie tell me how living here compares to living in England?
Even though some people find it quite difficult to work out here, there is a lot of opportunity for expats
to come over here to work.
We hoped you enjoyed the film and to discover other towns and people of the Costa Blanca,
tune into our website at: UPnowCostaBlanca.com