If you are looking for a villa holiday, with the freedom of being able to pick your own meals and bedtimes; but mixed with the convenience of being on a resort, La Torre might just be for you. Its a gated complex, with security. Its around 25 minutes from Murcia airport, or 45 minutes from Alicante. This is Southern Spain, so you are likely to get great weather.

We went in the middle of May – it was around 28-32 degrees each day. We rented a villa via Murcia Holiday Rentals, they have a huge mix of villas available. Be aware that you aren’t renting directly from the company – we had a few problems and were dealing with the property owners keyholder. We rented a lovely three storey two bed, two bath villa. I won’t link to it specifically as we had some issues with hot water, ants and general cleanliness. We did report these issues when we were out there and some were sorted, I also left a review on return which hasn’t been published. However the actual resort is great and well worth going to.

You have a choice of pools – there are 16 to pick from! Lots of grass areas too to sunbathe – the villas all have roof terraces which were great to chill out on with a drink.

For eateries, you are spoilt for choice on La Torre. There is an indian restaurant, an italian, a great british style restaurant called Blue Collar, and also just opened is O’Learys sports bar. I can recommend the first four, but wasn’t able to visit O’Learys. It looks amazing though. All these restaurants are slightly higher priced than in the village outside La Torre, but the quality is infinitely better. As an example, we were paying around £40 for two people including drinks.

If you venture into Roldan, there are lots of great value restaurants with Menu Del Dia and bargain deals. However we personally didn’t like these as much as the ones on La Torre. They were cheap and cheerful which you don’t necessarily want when you are on holiday.

For day trips, try Los Alcazares, Cartagena (make sure you take the tourist boat to the Roman fort), San Javier mud baths, and La Zenia shopping centre. Golf Delux is a great adventure golf too, wear a hat!

You do need a car, we hired a car from Campoverde Cars who were extremely reasonable and included transfers to and from the airport in the price, which really helped for first time drivers abroad.

There is also super cheap (and nice!) wine in all the supermarkets -and beer! In the restaurants you will pay half the price for alcohol that you do in the UK.