After going back to Marseille on my own – feel free to check my blog post here – , I decided to challenge myself a few months later and catch a flight to the South again, but this time, to Spain !
I headed to … 🌴 Alicante 🌴
Practical information
A tiny bit about the city
Alicante, or Alacant is located in the southeast region of Spain. It is well known for its beaches, Santa Barbara’s Castle or the famous Paseo de la Explanada.
Alicante’s weather
In the beginning of September, Alicante was still sunny. It was already around 20 degrees in the morning and about 24 degrees at night when I went back to my hotel !
My hotel in Alicante
Talking about hotels, here is where I stayed during my 4-day trip :
I only booked it 2 days before leaving and there was a promotion, so I guess I was lucky. I used booking.com and paid for the breakfast as well (cf pictures at the end of the post). My room was quite small but comfortable. I also had access to the terrace. It was located in the city center, at around 10 minutes by foot from la Playa del Postiguet. Lovely, isn’t it ?
How to get to see this wonderful beach?
Getting to Alicante
I flew from Paris to Alicante but you could come by bus, by car, by foot, by spaceship… who knows ? Everything you need to know is here.
I took the C6 bus to the city center and paid around 3 euros.
What to do in Alicante
Day 1 – Eat, sleep, repeat
After landing, I was hungry and fortunately for me, it was time to eat ! I walked towards my hotel and popped by Lizarran – cool place to eat tapas – I opted for croquetas so did not choose from the bar. I was very proud of myself for eating alone in a restaurant, before that, I only ate alone at McDonalds in my home country.
3 pm – time to go to sleep ! I mean… I was in the country of “la siesta”, right ? That is why I took a -way too long- nap and was still exhausted afterwards, however, I could not stay in the hotel room forever ! I went for a walk, took a few pictures, went to Carrefour markets and found out with horror that Ice tea was not made with peach but lemons !
Then I went to Mcdonald’s – can’t even remember what I ordered- but I thought it was a good idea to try it abroad.
Day 2 – Free walking tours to visit Alicante city
I thought that being alone was enjoyable but I needed to interact, or at least to hear someone else talking so I booked 2 walking tours.
In fact, I booked all of them in the end.
The first one was to visit the Old Town and the next one was to visit Santa Barbara’s Castle. The sunset was definitely the highlight of my trip – truly breathtaking !
Day 3 – More walking tours and meeting other human beings
Another day, another walking tour… or shall I say, two more ? The fun fact is that it was the same guy and I kept seeing the same girl. We talked and became circumstances buddies, after the tour, we went to the beach together, ate at Cien Montaditos – something I was obsessed about – and met again before the next tour.
Those were interesting as well, they were “The Old Town” and “The Hidden Alicante” tour. We visited Santa Cruz neighbourhood, which is very beautiful and colourful.
Day 4 – Museums and goobye dinner
On my last day, I visited a couple of museums :
- The Ocean’s race Museum
- MACA Contemporary Art Museum of Alicante
- Museo de Bellas Artes Gravina, MUBAG
But there are many others.
I could only take pictures in the first one, but all were interesting
I had dinner with my new friend, had a drink with some other people from her hostel and bought a friendship bracelet … wait until the end to find out whether we are still in contact at the end of the blog post
Day 5 – Time to go home !
I woke up at 3AM after going back to my hotel at 1AM. I was supposed to take a bus, but missed it, or probably did not understand where was the bus stop … so I had to call a cab, finally made it to the airport and wait forever until it was time to jump in the plane
What to eat in Alicante
or to be more specific : what I ate during those few days in Alicante.
- Croquetas in Lizzaran
- Mcdonald’s because I’m a capitalist’s child (pic 2)
- Tapas at 100 Montaditos – very cheap place where a large part of the menu is 1€ on some week days. Best thing about it : you can eat facing the Mediterranean sea (pic 5)
- Tapas at La Tasca del Barrio, located in a street recommended by the tour guide (pic 1)
- Pizzas at Papizza (pic 4)
- Occidental’s breakfast (pic 6)
My Trendy Trip Tricks :
- Book free walking tours, all of them, especially if they are very different. I was lucky that there were so many different available walking tours.
- Maybe go to hostels if you want to meet new people, but I made progress, didn’t I ?
- Don’t book a 6 AM flight… do not recommend it, at all
The final word
Alicante is one of my best trips… ever for three reasons : it was a birthday gift from me to myself, it was SUNNY, I got to rest, learned more about the city and met people, even though we did not stay in touch. Indeed, I am sad to announce that I am not in contact with this person anymore, because I deleted my personal instagram due to my urge to disappear from the Internet and also lost all my contacts 🙁
Where should I go next ? 🙂