IF you are a college student from Salamanca and you will have your one-week spring break this Lenten season (particularly during Holy Week), Denia will definitely be an ideal place to unwind and have personal moments of Christian retreat and reflection. Being located in a predominantly Roman Catholic country and with spring break scheduled in the middle of Lent, there are lots of pilgrims who troop to such Mediterranean places as Denia to either have collective retreats or personal ones because the weather here is very temperate and the surrounding is very serene, really conducive for spiritual retreats.

Of course, it’s not just food for the soul that tastes nutritious and delicious here in Denia. There are numerous foods for the body, too. Take for example the Mediterranean diet which consists of seafood sautéed deliciously in olive oil and capped with a glass of red wine. Olive oil, which is common and therefore cheap here, is the healthiest cooking oil in the world because of its low fat content while red wine is good for the heart especially for middle-aged people.

And most of the foreign visitors here in Denia are usually the retirees or those belonging to the middle-aged demographic. They mostly come from England where they have toiled for the rest of their lives and want to spend quality relaxation time in a Mediterranean place for a change.

Actually, the most beautiful place in Denia is somewhere between it and Xabia. There are lots of fishing villages here but before coming here, you must first go to the center of Denia itself and take a crash course in Spanish. There are lots of language schools in here because there’s obviously an abundance of European tourists, too, who want to learn Spanish. In a typical three-day Spanish crash course, students are instructed to write an essay in Spanish and recite it in front. The length of the essay progresses as the days wear on.

Then you can now start going around the fishing villages in Denia. If your Spanish is fluent enough, you can now converse with a fisherman and if he’s impressed enough with your Spanish skills, there is a great chance for you to receive a token of grouper from him. There is also a fortress ruin in the middle of Denia where there are organized tours daily so you may want to avail of this while you’re in here.