The Spanish region of Valencia has recently been enjoying hot and sunny weather conditions, it has been reported.

According to the Typically Spanish website, last month’s rainfall in the province was 85 per cent lower than the March average.

Citing figures from the Valencia Meteorological Office, the online portal added that temperatures in eastern Spain were more than a degree higher than they usually are at this time of year.

The heatwave will have been a timely development for foreign leisure travellers who visited resorts such as Alicante last month, in particular people from the UK.

According to the Association of British Travel Agents, Spain was the “outright favourite” for Britons who chose to head abroad during the recent Easter season.

This year’s timing of the festival - Easter Sunday fell on March 23rd - was the earliest it had been in almost 100 years.

Accessibility to a country is one of the most important factors to consider when eyeing up a property purchase away from the UK.

This is according to the Telegraph, which reports that regional governments are always keen to attract budget airlines - such as easyJet, Monarch and Ryanair - to establish routes linking to their regions.

Destinations with more links to foreign countries can be attractive to investors as they know that there could be more of a market to tap into.

However, the newspaper does warn that investors need to be aware of the negative side of this - when carriers drop services unexpectedly.

It states that airlines can change their plans “with little warning”, which is something those people making an overseas property investment should be aware of.

One reason Spain has been popular for property investment is because there are frequent flights from a variety of airlines and airports across the UK.

Tourism professionals and members of the public alike will find the International Tourism Fair an “attractive option”, according to official tourism website for the city Comunitat Valenciana.

Representatives from the whole region will be on hand to distribute information on a number of areas of interest, including where to go and stay when in Valencia.

Indeed, people looking to invest in Valencian property may find that the Feria Valencia-based event gives them an insight into what the Spanish region can offer them.

Over the last three years, the event has reportedly proved popular with visitors. This is the fourth year that it has been held and people will be able to access the information stands from Friday April 4th until Sunday April 6th.

The portal states that travel agencies, tour operators, hotel establishments and campsites, as well as Spanish and international official tourism bodies, are all scheduled to be present at the event.

The show’s official website indicates that the occasion “is now recognised as one of the major trade events for the tourism industry in Spain”.

Spain is still a dream destination for many British people looking to purchase overseas property, it has been claimed.

According to southern Spanish newspaper Sur, many UK buyers are undeterred by recent negative publicity surrounding foreign property investment and view Spain as one of the most desirable places in the world to own a home.

Sur made these comments after attending the recent Homebuyers and Property Investors Exhibition at the ExCel centre in London, where many Britons spoke to the newspaper about their hopes of moving to Spain or buying a second home on the southern Costas.

Rebekah Lowe of Livingstone Estates told Sur that although some professional investors may be tempted by emerging markets where prices are lower, people looking to buy a property for their own use will continue to be attracted to Spain.

“Spain is for living in and people will always want Spanish properties,” she commented.

According to a recent report from Spanish property website Kyero.com, coastal regions such as the Costa Blanca and Costa del Sol remain “at the fore of the public psyche” for UK people hoping to move abroad.

Motorists in Alicante province could soon be enjoying shorter journey times if proposals for a larger inland carriageway are given the go-ahead.

According to Typically Spanish, the infrastructure department at the Generalitat de Valencia has put forward a draft proposal for a new wider road to run inland from Vinalopo and ease congestion on the Alicante-Madrid motorway.

Under the road scheme, over 26 kilometres of the existing CV-83 road will be converted into a dual carriageway and a new connection with the neighbouring province of Murcia will be established.

Local officials in the towns close to the road, including Novelda, Monovar and Pinoso, are currently considering the proposals.

A second ring road around Alicante city was opened in December 2007 to improve access to the airport and other amenities on the Costa Blanca. The new road is divided into four toll sections and was constructed at a cost of €1 billion, Typically Spanish reported.

Valencia has opened a unique 80,000 sqm modern zoo at the Parque de Cabecera.

More than 4,000 different animals coming from around 250 different species live at the zoo.

Some of the zoo’s inhabitants have come from Valencia Zoo, while a number of others have been donated by different zoos around Europe, including donations from France, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands.

 
The famous Valencia Zoo, set in the Viveros gardens has been open since 1965, and as well as housing large mammals and birds, it also has a collection of more than 50 species of fish.

Dubbed Bioparc Valencia, the zoo is an ‘immersion zoo’ in which the animals’ natural habits are reproduced in detail in respect of their inhabitants.

Habitats include recreations of Equatorial Africa, the Americas and dry savannahs.

It is hoped that visitors to the zoo will enjoy an educational visit and understand the need and importance of animal preservation.

The zoo is open daily between 10:00 and 18:00 or 21:00 local time, depending on the season.

Thousands of tourists are expected to flock to the Spanish city of Valencia next month to witness the spectacular Las Fallas festival and take part in the celebrations.

Each year hundreds of papier-mache figures mounted over wooden frames are burnt as part of a pagan ritual that pays tribute to the coming of the spring solstice.

 As well as bonfires and exciting pyrotechnics, the event will also feature colourful parades and lively regional music, with an impressive fireworks display over the Turia River rounding off the festivities.

The atmosphere of the festival is designed to symbolise flowering gardens and the arrival of spring, which signals a change in the weather and brings locals and tourists alike out into the streets.

Those with rental properties in Spain will be looking to benefit from an increase in visitor numbers when the festival, which continues to grow in popularity each year, takes place between March 15th and 19th.

Some of the best athletes in the world will descend on Valencia next month for the 12th International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) World Indoor Championships.

The competition begins on March 7th and will last for three days, with international athletes competing in events such as the 60 metres, 1,500 metres, high jump, pole vault and shot put.

With the Olympic games taking place in Beijing later this year, athletes have an extra incentive to perform well at the Palau Velodromo Luis Puig and the event is sure to be a thrilling spectacle.

IAAF president Lamine Diack said that he expects the championships to be “an athletics fiesta for our sport to savour”, helped by the fact that Valencia is “very much a sports city”.

Valencia certainly has plenty to offer sports fans - it provided the home port for last year’s America’s Cup sailing competition and is set to do so again in 2009, while the first Formula One Grand Prix on the city streets will take place later this year. The Valencia football team is also one of the top sides in Spain and has been successful in Europe.

A series of public performances are set to turn the city of Valencia into a paradise for art-lovers over the next two weeks, it has emerged.

The latest instalment of the VEO festival will see a number of theatrical performances, musical recitals and experimental dance events take place on the streets of the city, Communitat Valenciana reports.

According to the website, these performances are sure to “differ greatly from what theatregoers are used to seeing on stage” and aim to “create a very special link between actors and spectators”.

More traditional performances will also take place in theatres across Valencia, including the Teatro Musical, Sala Almudin and Matilde Salvador Hall.

For those who prefer to enjoy their cultural activity in the open air, outdoor events at Patriarca square, L’Almoina and Marxalenes park are also scheduled as part of the festival.

Communitat Valenciana states that, from now until February 24th, Valencia is “a city conquered by art”.

Fans of British music in southern Spain got a treat last month when ex-Suede singer Brett Anderson appeared at the Teatro Cervantes in Malaga - the only performance in Spain on his current tour.

Property owners and holidaymakers on the Costa Blanca are in for a treat next week, when Spanish dancer Nacho Duato brings his new stage show to Alicante.

Described as “one of the best Spanish ballet dancers of all time” by Communitat Valenciana, Duato has been artistic director of the Spanish National Dance Company since 1990 and is renowned for his choreography skills throughout the dance world.

He will perform his Duato x3 show, consisting of three different dances from various stages of his career, at the Teatro Principal de Alicante on February 6th.

“Duato’s choreographies are a reflection of our times, concentrating in themes related to our everyday realities while remaining committed to important social issues,” Communitat Valenciana states.

Born in Valencia, Duato perfected his art at some of the most famous dance schools in the world, including the Rambert School in London and Maurice Bejart’s Mudra School in Brussels.