Lloret de Mar Carnival 2011

Its nearly Carnival time again in Lloret de Mar, a little later than usual so hopefully the weather will stay dry and warm for all the events. This is a fantastic event and brings a great atmosphere to the town. If your lucky enough to be here during the first week in March you really must see the colourful parades, the first of the two parades will be on Saturday 5th March at 4pm, and the second one will be on Sunday at 12noon. This is one of the best yearly events in Lloret and really shouldnt be missed!
I'll give a complete run down of other things which are going on in town over the Carnival week-end  nearer the date.

Lloret de Mar Tourism

Its been reported in the local press that tourism in Lloret during 2010 saw a slight recovery.  On average the hotels had a 75% occupancy, just a small rise on figures from 2009. The majority of visitors were Catalan and Spanish, along with others from all over Europe.
Hotel owners are pleased that Lloret de Mar is not only dependant on visitors of just one or two Nationalities, and that the town is still a popular holiday destination....although the stays are very much shorter than previous years.

So the town believes that because the hotels are doing well things are looking good .... not if you get out and about and talk to the bar owners and other business owners in town they're not!

Lloret Beaches - Santa Cristina

During the last few days on this blog you have been able to find out just what each of Lloret's beaches have to offer, the fifth and last one today is Santa Cristina beach.... Which is 450mts long and here the young kids will love the finer sand, its great for making sandcastles! Here on Santa Cristina is a bar for snacks and drinks or a restaurant if you fancy a meal, you can also hire sunbeds, parasols and pedalos. To reach Santa Cristina you can take a short trip from Lloret beach on the resort boats, or walk down through the woods but you will need your walking shoes on!

If you do fancy the 3.5km walk to this beach then you will see the little church of Santa Cristina which is just at the top of the pathway leading down to the beach. Or even if you travel to the beach by boat its well worth making the trek up the path to pay a visit to the 18th century church and its grounds from where you have spectacular views of the coast.

Lloret de Mar Beaches - Boadella

Boadella Beach in my opinion must be one of the prettiest beaches in Catalunya if not Spain! One drawback is that its not very easy to reach owing to the steep incline leading down to the waters edge, which keeps this beach fairly quiet compared to Lloret and Fenals, and also up until 3 - 4yrs ago the resort boats used to pull into Boadella but this is no longer so. The beach is in a very natural setting surrounded by woods, much of which was cleared a couple of years ago and new pathways created...possibly to take away the risk of fires.

At a length of 250mts this is the shortest beach in Lloret, but there are still very good amenties....showers, toilets and a beach bar where you can get a cool drink, ice cream or snacks, or it could be a nice place to take your own picnic, and there is also a first aid point.
Boadella beach was and still is known to be a beach for the naturist's but they do usually tend to stay to one end of the beach, so you may not see too much of them....apart from when they want to take a dip in the sea to cool off!

Lloret de Mar Beaches - Canyelles

The beach at Canyelles can be found as you take a turn off to the right from the road leading out to Tossa de Mar. This scenic beach is surrounded by cliffs and the Cala Canyelles urbanisation. Although Canyelles is only a relatively small cove amenities here are very good, the beach is 400mts long there are pedalos, sun beds and parasols to hire. On the beach is a drinks and ice cream kiosk, but there are bars and restaurants in the area. This is the only beach in Lloret with a small yacht harbour. If you have no transport then this beach is quite hard to reach as its quite a long and steep walk from Lloret but there is a bus you can catch from Lloret's sea front.