Give visitors quality, not tat, and they’ll keep coming back

Before any of you say I have more holidays than Father Christmas, I’m on family birthday duty. Well, we had to have some excuse to escape the drab conditions back home.

We’re trying a different form of accommodation this time, a town house in the old town of Javea - very historic. It’s flying by the seat of the pants for us as everyone around us is local and not a lot of English is spoken - no problem for a lad from Morecambe though.

One thing that has struck us living in the old town is the great sense of community that prevails and the fact the locals all come out to socialise as a family - granny and all. The weather has helped as well, no tourists but plenty about on the streets.

On Sunday we treated our daughter to her birthday meal by driving round the coast to Denia, probably the same distance as from Morecambe to Arnside. Our destination was the Republic restaurant on the marina - check it out on the web!

The aspect was stunning. Okay, not the views across the bay as we have but to be sat overlooking hundreds of yachts and speedboats while sipping on an ice cold glass of wine is just so relaxing. I’m sure I spotted Roman Abramovich out there!

I, for one, wouldn’t mind if any forward-thinking members of our town council decided on a fact-finding mission to Denia to see how to bring business and people into a town. For November, the place was heaving.

I was tucking into a fantastic bouillabaisse to start - it was the sea in a bowl. The sea bass fillets that followed were caught in the surrounding Med, cooked, of course, to perfection.

We have got to have eateries of that quality all along our sea front. Republic was just one of eight or nine along one jetty.

I’m a great believer of “build it and they will come.” Give visitors quality not tat.