My trip to Alicante in Spain
For years, I have wanted to visit Spain and as my son Lucas was spending part of the Christmas holidays at his dad’s, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to take some time away for myself and finally visit the country. 🙂
I flew from Gatwick to Alicante on Tuesday 27th December 2016. Upon my arrival, I took a bus to the centre of the city and then walked a further 10 minutes to the hotel Cervantes, where I stayed for the duration of my trip.
As you can see from the pictures below, it was beautiful weather – about 18C and sunny – that day so after I’d checked in at the hotel, I quickly unpacked and headed in to the town centre to explore, starting with a stroll around the harbour area.
I then continued further along the harbour, through an avenue of palm trees (Paseo Explanada de Espana), to the Castle of Santa Barbara (Castillo de Santa Barbara) which had some amazing views over the entire city of Alicante.
As I’d had a very early start that day (4am) and what with the travelling and walking around the city, I though I had better have an early night, so I made may way back to the hotel.
The next day, Wednesday the 28th December, was a cloudy day, a bit cooler, but still warmer than in England. 🙂 I visited Fernando Street, a “mushroom” street which has lovely statues of mushrooms – great for kids to hide in. 🙂
I was starting to get hungry, so it was a time to find a place to eat lunch. There were many places closed due to it being Siesta time and the Christmas season, but after a while of searching, I found this lovely restaurant – Pizzeria Pipo – where I had a veggie pizza and some mint tea.
On the way back, I found a lovely vegan café and pastry shop that also didn’t use white sugar – www.tressemillas.com. I spent several hours there reading my new book – ‘How to win friends and influence people’, which I will share with you soon.
I loved the friendly staff and atmosphere there. I had freshly extracted beetroot, carrot and apple juice, apple tarte and hot chocolate with oat milk… later I also had another piece of fruit tarte. It was all very yummy. 🙂
Frankly, I do not remember the last time I sat and enjoyed time at a café… I think I will try to do this more often. 🙂
Thursday the 29th December was another lovely sunny day. I visited the Nativity Museum (Museo de Belenes) which was free of charge. There were some really beautiful pieces to see, all hand made figurines from all over the world. I even found two from my home country of the Czech Republic. 🙂 See pictures below.
Then I had lunch at an Indian restaurant called New Delhi, sitting outside on the terrace in the harbour area. It was a lovely meal with some spiced tea e.g. fennel, cinnamon bark and cardamom. The staff were also very friendly and spoke English. The only thing I did not like was the white chapatti, which was very dry. It did not look and taste as good as the chapatti I know, so I had it wrapped to go and gave it to a smiley beggar on my way back to the hotel.
I had noticed there were many beggars in the city so I showed them some generosity by giving three of them a little something to eat during my stay there. They all smiled and thanked me and it made me feel good to know that I may have helped them in some small way. 🙂
On the way back to the hotel I stopped at the vegan café again. This time it was very busy, so I just ordered some freshly extracted juice (I think it was cucumber, apple, ginger and lemon), apple tarte and a herbal tea to take away. I enjoyed that while watching a film back in my hotel room.
On Friday the 30th December I stayed in the hotel until late afternoon as I was so tired from all the walking I had been doing. I read my book, exercised and meditated. For my lunch I had some wholegrain bread with organic vegetables and a chickpea spread that I had bought the previous day.
With my stay coming to an end, I had my last dinner in Alicante. A wholegrain baguette with salad and drizzled over with olive oil.
On Saturday the 31st December I flew back to the UK. My breakfast consisted of freshly extracted orange juice from the hotel cafeteria, herbal tea and fruits – organic raspberries and bananas from the local health food shop.
My thoughts of Alicante?
I had a nice time. I met some really friendly people there. I visited all the places I intended to view and more.
Food-wise, with a little effort, you can find some really lovely places there as I did. Only a street away from my hotel was a health food shop (www.supersano.es), that I visited daily for organic produce, organic wholegrain bread, soy yoghurt, mineral water and a sweet treat. It was really convenient being so closed to the hotel and having such great opening hours (9am-9pm) with a large selection of healthy products and friendly English speaking staff.
There were also some vegetarian restaurants as well, but they were closed for the Christmas holidays. I will definitely visit them next time I come.
Would I come back again? Absolutely. There are many child-friendly restaurants with children’s corners and out in the open there are numerous play areas…
I will return with my son and would also love to explore the surrounding towns such as Benidorm with its adventure park and of course the opportunity to bathe in the sea. 🙂
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