April 2007 - My wife and I had moved into London from East Anglia and had a little cash in the bank, we harboured wild dreams of running away to the sun and making our fortune with a property in some foreign country, cue the "Place in the Sun" property show" at the Excel center, we should go for a look we decided, hmm yes good idea... and so it began.......
The show was small and quiet and seemingly you could buy an apartment in Bulgaria for the loose change lost down the back of the sofa, you couldn't' walk down the aisle without 6 separate people offering you Bulgaria it was a veritable feeding frenzy .......Bansko seemed popular..(where the hell was Bansko ??) - ahh its a Ski resort is it ??.. ...ok we dont ski, nor do we want to thanks very much - so that's of no interest to us....what about the Black sea ?? - "well sir there is going to be a exquisite marina here" this place will surely be the "Monaco of Bulgaria" "amazing investment and only 24K".... " buy now put it on your credit card"
I am sure Bulgaria was, and is still a wonderful country, but did the thought of going there on holiday for the next 30 years fill me with excitement ??? ....no it didn't at all, in fact it left me colder than Bansko itself. We walked on and away from eastern europe and reverted to and area we knew better - the mediterranean.
Cue here a wavy screen and music as we have a momentary flashback........(for the sake of clarity...)
It was about this time when an outfit called "Polaris World" were advertising on TV, the adverts for these golf resorts were incredibly cheesy with Mr Hernandez (the head honcho) of Polaris mugging shamelessly to the camera in a spanish accent last heard in a Torquay hotel, but he had assistance of the Golden Bear himself Mr Jack Nicklaus, so surely this was pukka ???
I watched the ads and then waited for Coronation Street to start, not really registering any interest....but maybe there was a subliminal memory somewhere ????
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| Mr Hernandez - Polaris Head Honcho |
Free ???? - well what could there be to lose......??
Friday 25th May 2007 and we are at Stansted, its the bank holiday weekend and the airport is packed, its the 1st time we have flown with Ryanair and we are not sure what to expect.
As is turns out the flight is good and 2 hours later we arrive at San Javier in Murcia, the sun in shining and the airport is tiny and we are off the plane and out the other side in less than ten minutes, we have a smart guy collect us and take us to the Polaris flagship resort at "Mar Menor" conveniently only 20 mins from the airport.
We arrive and check into the Hotel Intercontinental - its wonderful...quiet, elegant and very classy and the grounds and properties are very attractive, we are hooked from this early point (as everyone told us we would be !)
We check into our room and set off exploring the site in the sunshine, we walk around the golf course and sit around the pool, this was more like it. In the evening we visited the cocktail bar where we sampled several fine free cocktails and then partook of dinner and breakfast the following morning,
Saturday morning and it was again warm and sunny so we headed off on the real reason for our trip to look at what PW could offer and to look at this "amazing" new site they were developing called "Condado de Alhama"
We met with Penny + Steve of Dreamcoast and set off to visit the Head office of Polaris World, 20 mins later we arrived in an industrial estate by the side of the main A30 road running into Murcia. It wasn't quite as we expected.... but the PW building was shiny, clean, ice cold inside and overrun with sales agent propelling prospective customers around the building staring at very impressive models of the available sites. We stopped, looked, stocked up on cold drinks from the PW fridge and then set off for Condado.
To be continued....
