Bright apartment with a large sun terrace

The terrace is the point here. Roughly 45 square metres, with garden furniture, and big enough to spend the whole day on — breakfast in the morning sun, shift into the shade when it heats up, and dinner outside in the evening. The apartment itself is about 75 square metres, bright and modern.

Two bedrooms and, unusually, two bathrooms as well. That saves waiting around when there are four of you. One bedroom has a double bed, the other two singles, so it works for two couples just as well as for a family with children.

The kitchen is open and complete: induction hob, oven, microwave, dishwasher and a coffee maker. There is a washing machine and a dryer too, which on a stay of more than a week is the difference between a holiday and a suitcase full of laundry.

The complex is quiet and has a shared pool with a separate children’s pool. Air conditioning in summer, heating in winter — this home is comfortable in the low season as well, which is exactly why so many people come here to spend the winter.

You can walk to the shops in three minutes. The beach is about a quarter of an hour by car, as are the golf courses nearby.

Los Altos sits on the part of the Orihuela Costa that is quiet without being far from anything. You walk to the shops; for everything else you are where you need to be within fifteen minutes.

The beaches run along the coast like beads on a string. Cala La Mosca is the nearest and the quietest — a small cove between the rocks where you sometimes have the place to yourself early in the season. Punta Prima is bigger and has beach bars, and there are another five or so coves around it, all within twenty minutes.

La Zenia Boulevard is the largest shopping centre in the region, a quarter of an hour away. If you would rather sit somewhere than shop, the squares at Villamartín and Cabo Roig have terraces that stay open late.

Golfers are spoilt: several eighteen-hole courses lie within half an hour, Villamartín and Las Ramblas among them. For a day of something else there are the salt lakes at Torrevieja, where the water turns pink and the flamingos stand.

And then there is the season. In November you are still eating outside here. That is exactly why so many northern Europeans sit out the winter on this coast, and why this home is let outside the summer too.