Live News From Spain As It Happens

JAZZING up your summer, Spain's east coast is aflame with music this August: Two much-loved festivals barely 10 kilometres apart mean the final full month of summer is always an excellent time to plan a trip to the beautiful, cosmopolitan enclave known as the Marina Alta.

Home to well over 100 nationalities, but still very 'typically Spanish', tastefully built up on its coastline and with pine-covered, mountainous green wilderness just minutes inland hiding a multitude of villages that feel as though the passage of time took a detour and circumnavigated them – think working donkeys, whole families living off their cherry orchards and vineyards, and life revolving around the local bar where everyone knows your name – the northernmost shire in the province of Alicante sees several worlds collide.

Beach towns such as Dénia – the Marina Alta's capital – Jávea, Calpe, Benissa, Benitatxell and Teulada-Moraira are lively in summer, quiet and pleasant in every other season, multi-national and multi-cultural (although we're not talking about a 'little Britain' of chip shops or pubs with Union Jacks flying; a mix of European and wider-world influences maintain a discreet and harmonious presence with the ever-evolving 'real Spain'), oozing with history, attractive, bright and colourful; smaller coastal villages such as El Verger and Els Poblets, close to the Valencia-province border, retain their close-knit community feel.