Marina d'Or

On the Spanish television one can see once and again an advert about "Marina d'Or, ciudad de vacaciones" (Marina d'Or, a holidays city). It seems to be a huge touristic complex, built from scratch, in the Mediterranean coast.

I can't imagine worse news for the environment. They try to present this product as a luxurious, exclusive resort, with a hospital which can hold up to seven thousand patients, three golf courses, and many more things like these. Among them... a winter resort with skiing tracks!

I can't stand seeing this advert. I have to admit that I don't have detailed information, but I do have an impression. Building a huge city to devastate the environment in a seriously ill Mediterranean is, in itself, outrageous. But building three golf courses in a place like Castellón seems, to say the least, obscene. Not to mention a winter resort. (Let's not forget that this is an area in serious risk of desertification, and there were hideously monumental plans, luckily abadoned, to transfer water from the Ebro river to irrigate the southeast of Spain.) Or a huge hospital for wealthy people who don't care to spoil the last bits of nature in the Mediterranean, whereas many inhabitants of Castellon and the rest of Spain are queuing up for treatments they desperately need, in a public system they have contributed to build with their honest, everyday effort (and here, at least, there is still a public health system...)

I don't know every detail. But, even at the risk of being wrong, I'm absolutely sure that Marina d'Or is not a holiday city. It's mostly a terrible disaster. And they dare to advertise it.