What's on in Costa Cálida

The "warm coast" of the Murcia region is one of Spain's best-kept secrets, built around two very different bodies of water. The Mar Menor is Europe's largest saltwater lagoon — shallow, warm and calm, ringed by family resorts like Los Alcázares and San Javier, ideal for young children and watersports. On the open Mediterranean side sit the historic port city of Cartagena and the laid-back beaches of Mazarrón.

For a region that few UK visitors know, the summer culture programme punches well above its weight. Cartagena — founded by the Carthaginians and rebuilt by the Romans, with the ruins to prove it — hosts La Mar de Músicas, a superb world-music festival, in July, and in September stages the spectacular Carthaginians and Romans festival, with thousands of costumed locals re-enacting the Punic Wars. San Javier's International Jazz Festival, on the shore of the Mar Menor, has been drawing the genre's biggest names for nearly three decades, with several free concerts each year.

Access has improved with Murcia's Corvera airport (RMU), and Alicante is an easy drive up the coast — both have good UK links. Public transport is thin once you're here, so a hire car makes sense, especially for hopping between the lagoon resorts, Cartagena and the quieter Mazarrón beaches.

Warm, calm waters, real history and a cultural calendar that locals are rightly proud of, all without the prices or the crowds of the better-known costas — this is your guide to what's on along the Costa Cálida.