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Although southern Spain has gained worldwide fame as the ‘Costa del Golf’, there is much more to sporting life in this outdoor paradise than bashing a little white ball round a very large green field. And the Costas Blanca and de la Luz are no laggards when
As for rock climbing, serious mountaineering or potholing, there are more opportunities just a few miles inland than you can shake a stick at. | | it comes to sport for all. There’s tennis as we know it, and padel, and bowls, and windsurfing and water-skiing and scuba-diving and jet-skiing and parascending and paragliding and hang-gliding and rock climbing and mountain biking and rollerblading and horse riding and white-water rafting and and and…the list goes on.
And for those to whom the sun is anathema, (which is, admittedly, a trifle strange in southern Spain), there’s snooker, pool and darts.Whichever way you look at it, the gamut of options is pretty impressive.Let’s take tennis as a start point – dozens and dozens of urbanisations have their own tennis courts, some of which are for the exclusive use of owners and those renting, but others with general public entrance. Then, there are dozens and dozens of tennis clubs, offering membership, by month or for longer, or with pay-as-you-play options. Many of the clubs run regular tournaments, with some of the most popular the Sunday morning, turn-up and pay, round-robin competitions. These usually entail linking up with another player of, roughly, your standard and being placed in a group of similar doubles teams. Each plays the others, generally for just one set, which can give you as many as five sets of tennis during the day. Winners will receive a token trophy, often a tennis shirt, hat, or tin of balls.
It costs very little and is a great, fun day. As most tennis clubs have children’s facilities and/or pools, the whole family can make a day of it. Padel is less popular, although, again, there is a plethora of clubs and individual courts scattered thoughout the whole region. For those who are not familiar with padel, it’s a sort of walled-in, open-air combination of tennis and squash, using a net but with the facility to hit the ball off the side and back walls. Solid bats are used, rather than racquets. It’s fast and furious and a great way to shake off some of those excess calories, not to mention the occasional hangover.Bowls has always had the reputation of being the ‘oldies’ sport – nothing more than a gentle stroll up and down a strip of Astroturf or real grass attempting to get a large, black ball as close as possible to a little, white (or yellow) one, using the bias of the bowl to approach the jack from one side or the other.
Then, along came British bowlers,David Bryant and Tony Allcock and changed that forever. Today, it’s played by all ages and is a highly-competitive sport and, as I once discovered to my chagrin, extremely technical. Round my way, at the Benavista Bowls Club, some people call the aficionados ‘Hell’s Bowlers’, such is the cut and thrust of competition. Members there regularly compete against teams from the Santa Maria club, based at Elviria, or others from the Costa del Sol Bowls Club, at the Mijas Hotel, the Mijas Bowls Club, whose greens are on the road to
the village just outside Fuengirola, and the Miraflores Lawn Bowls Club, headquartered at the urbanisation of the same name. National championships are held annually, on a rotational basis, in Almeria, Javea, Alicante and Benavista.
Pretty well all of the resorts along the coast, from the Costa de la Luz right round to the Costa Blanca have extensive beaches where anyone can take part in a water and wind-based sport, be it windsurfing, or
The Costa Blanca, in particular, with its hundreds of coves and crystal clear water, lends itself to underwater sports. | | water-skiing, or any of the myriad options on offer. Some of the larger beaches offer a range of sports, others just one or two so it’s, to an extent, pot luck on what you can find and where.
There are scuba diving clubs, where you can learn the PADI method, which is probably about the best way of getting to grips with the underwater world. On the other hand, you can just slip on a mask, snorkel and flippers and potter around with the fish. The Costa Blanca, in particular, with its hundreds of coves and crystal clear water, lends itself to underwater sports. The Costa del Sol is, as a general rule of thumb, flatter – with vast expanses of open sand and wind in abundance – where you can make the most of those sports which lift you and your spirits high in the air. Tarifa is the obvious place to plump for – not for nothing is it known as the windsurfing capital of Europe. As for rock climbing, serious mountaineering or potholing, there are more opportunities just a few miles inland than you can shake a stick at. The highest peak in the Iberian peninsula is the Mulhacén, in the Sierra Nevada, at an impressive 3.482 metres. For potholers, the third largest chasm in the world and the largest in Spain – still unexplored – is the 1.090 metre-deep chasm GESM in Malaga’s Sierra de Tolox. In between, as it were, there’s something for everyone. |
