More from Tony Porter in Australia.

Today I'm showing you more photos from Tony in Australia. If you remember from his last photos and email he is looking for some info on the original Costa Encantada hotel which he believes stood on the same site as the 'new' one which is in Fenals today. I received another email from Tony yesterday in which he gives some more details of the hotel and the then owner - Antonio Drets, does his name sound familiar to any of you?
The above photo must be another of the hotels in Lloret, The Adriano.
Photos below, going by Tony's description are the Costa Encantada.

This is part of Tony' recent email....

Re the hotel’s location, I’ve only stated it was on the same site as the current hotel because someone else told me that. The road I don’t remember, but the hotel itself sat on a rise, with a winding ‘terraced’ driveway up from the road.

I know that the trip to the main Lloret beach was a cab ride, but if we turned off the road and walked along dirt roads through the fields (and a lot of ‘scrub’ with a sort-of aniseed-fennel aroma in summer) we’d come in 5-10 minutes to what we considered our own private beach. I’ve assumed, by looking at the map, that it must have been Fenals – but if it turns out the hotel was in the other direction, then maybe it was a different stretch of beach. I can tell you it was a very small cove, littered with fishing boats much like the main beach, but much more secluded and private, with rocky access to the sand.

Antonio Drets was a portly, jovial man, and made a huge fuss of me because we shared the same name. I don’t remember his wife, but the daughters were always around and we sometimes played with them - mostly the youngest, Anna-Marie. (If I said Maria in an earlier email, I was confusing her with a maid at the hotel who ‘doubled’ as our baby-sitter when my parents were out carousing with the locals and other tourists.) The name of an older sister, Mercedes, stuck because it was the same as the car!

Maybe I should open my own page somewhere – but I fear the technology might defeat me! Silly, really, given that I’ve made a career as a journo (among other things such as acting), so all this tacky stuff should be second-nature. Maybe if I was 14.....

Cheers,

Tony P.