Europe > Spain > Murcia and Alicante > Alicante > Articles > The Real (Package) Deal

Benidorm may flank it like a dodgy cousin in a family snap but Alicante stands proudly apart from its neighbour on the Costa Blanca - a vibrant, elegant city rather than a package holiday bunker.

Peering over the old iron balcony of the Hospes Amerigo - a modernist oasis carved out of a 17th century Franciscan monastery - we look down on the narrow streets of Alicante’s old town (the Barrio) coming to life each morning, weighing up options as the chatter of locals and occasional toot of a car horn drifts upward through the warmth of early summer.

Though Greek and Phoenician settlements existed around Mount Benacantil, it was the Roman city of Lucentum (City of Light) which provided the foundation of what was to become Alicante. You can still visit the ruins of the old Roman town in the city outskirts via a half-hour bus ride (No.9) from the bustling Central Market building on Avenida Alfonso X.

The Arabs followed the Romans, though there is little of their presence left in the architecture of the city today compared to cities such as Seville or Cordoba. Alicante was reconquered for the Castilians by Alfonso X in 1246, and was incorporated into the province of Valencia - road signs still use the city’s Valencian Catalan name, Alacant.

Despite being only a couple of hundred yards from the seafront, we don’t venture once onto Alicante’s Postiguet beach. It‘s a beautiful bit of sand but with other things on our mind thoughts of a dip never seem that important (though if it had been the sweltering heat of August maybe we may have felt differently!).

We started most days, instead, with relaxed wandering through the Barrio, especially the characterful warren of streets between the Rambla de Mendez Nunez and the Avenida Federico Soto. Their relative calm contrasts with the surge of locals taking in the flagship stores on Avenida de Maissonave. Laidback cafes and tea-rooms - such as Te A Te on Calle Castanos - offer a chance to recharge. In little squares like Plaza Miro, meanwhile, graceful statues and luxuriant greenery provide quieter spaces.

There‘s a castle too. The Castillo de Santa Barbara looms over the city, its honey-coloured stones almost indistinguishable from the arid slopes of Mount Benacantil, around which the Parque de la Ereta wraps a little green swaddling.

The Capa sculpture collection which decorated the castle grounds until recently has been removed when we visit, though I never managed to establish whether temporarily or permanently! There’s still a little modern art space, though, just by the main castle gate with a surprisingly good range of international work.

But many people come here just for the view and the cooler air. A café services a wide terrace shaded by trees, and a lift provides an easy way up the mountain for a couple of euros, though I felt a twinge of guilt as our car passed a sprightly grey-haired lady making the stiff climb on foot in the morning sunshine.

Looking down from the battlements, our eyes follow the curve of golden sand from Postiguet towards Playa San Juan a few miles north of the city - now a stop on Alicante’s expanding new tram system, part of the Costa Blanca’s sprucing up for its hosting of the Americas Cup yachting event in 2007.

Looking out over the Mediterranean, we can just make out the island of Tabarca, a tiny low-lying patch of darkness eight miles out into the ocean blue. Next morning we’re on the Marina quayside climbing onto the little ferry bound for the Costa Blanca’s only island. Just over an hour later we arrive at a place that seems like a charming timewarp (in spite of a small development of two-storey holiday flats at one of the town which cause a momentary sinking of spirits).

Palms flank an old stone archway into Tabarca’s tiny town, criss-crossed by a handful of dirt streets lined with little houses offering glimpses of shady courtyards. Around the perimeter an old defensive wall crumbles gently into the sea. An impressively large church lies beneath a cladding of scaffolding, alas, but we comfort ourselves with a lunch of simple fish dishes at one of the clutch of restaurants looking out onto the tiny harbour dotted with multicoloured boats.

There’s something comforting about an island you can walk all the way around in an hour or so. Little more than a mile long and a few hundred yards wide, tall grass covers most of Tabarca, moving in the sea breeze like a straw-coloured ocean dotted with islands of green cacti. An old lighthouse is all that interrupts the view out to sea. The sound of the waves is constant, piling onto one side of the island, while rocky coves provide sheltered places to paddle on the other.

There is a beach (more pebble than sand) just by the harbour but my family look askance at the waves whipped up by a brisk breeze, mutter about currents and head off to a quiet rocky cove five minutes walk away. The rocks are sharp enough to wish we‘d packed beach shoes and the water cold still in May - but it’s also so clear it’s easy to see why Tabarca has been declared a marine reserve. Just before 5, a ship’s horn calls us back to the quayside for the trip back to Alicante.

That evening we just beat the queue of locals to grab a spot at the bar of Nou Manolin on Calle Villegas. With a reputation for some of the best tapas in southern Spain, we work our way through a mix of fine rice and vegetable dishes, meat, fish and shellfish, admiring the calmness and dexterity of the staff as they deal with a flood of orders from a happy throng sitting beneath a ceiling covered by vast legs of ham.

As well as superb ham, Alicante - like Valencia to the north - is also famous for rice dishes. We put theory to the test at Darsena, which offers arroz in over 150 different guises as well as a fine location on the Marina overlooking the expensive yachts and motorised gin palaces.

Lunch begins with a popular local appetiser of Iberian bacon wrapped around succulent dates from nearby Elche (a town uniquely set inside a Moorish oasis of over 200,000 date palms). The rice that follows is as good as we’d hoped, admirably maintaining the flavours of its individual ingredients while uniting them into a delicious whole. Other specialities at Darsena include a crab soup flavoured with Armagnac, and we round things off with the traditional dessert of ice-cream made with the famous local honey-and-almond nougat (turron).

To bookend lunch each day we dip into Alicante’s excellent museums and galleries, a neat mix in terms of both subject and size.

The Museo de Fogueres, for example, on the Rambla de Mendez Nunez is small enough to whizz round in half an hour if you want yet still manages to provide an engaging chronicle of the city’s amazing annual pyrotechnic fiesta, Las Hogueras. Taking over the city in late June, Alicante’s fiesta may not be as famous as Valencia’s renowned Las Fallas (in March) but it’s just as explosive.

The festival begins with Plantà, when large papier-mâché and wooden statues are set in place, followed by parades and floral offerings to the fiesta’s patron saint, San Juan.. The climax of the festivities is known as Cremà, when the statues are set alight and fireworks explode across the city. The museum has a selection of the amazing giant figures spared from the flames (though some are so garish that burning seems a good idea!) as well as some beautiful posters and a film which gives a good idea of the carnival atmosphere that takes over the city.

The Asegurada Museum requires more serious attention as the city’s main modern art museum, with a fine complement of 20th century Spanish masters including Picasso, Dali, Miro, Gris and Tapies. For a glimpse into the region’s current art scene head for Lonja de Pescado, one of the city’s least-known but best-looking art spaces tucked away at the western end of the Marina on Paseo Julio Guillén Tato.

Another charming small museum is the Museo de Belenes, a 19th century house turned over to Nativity scenes from around the world. Inside what was once the old hospital of San Juan de Dios, meanwhile, the award-winning Museo Arquelogico (MARQ) is a former European Museum of the Year boasting a superb collection of Iberian antiquities, Roman utensils and Islamic treasures.

If a neighbourhood can be a treasure then Santa Cruz is Alicante’s candidate. This cluster of streets at the base of the castle mountain to the north of the Barrio is lined with beautifully-adorned white houses draped in banners and flowers, decorated with eclectic objects.

For our last evening we wander from the Barrio back up to Santa Cruz and grab an outside table at one of the neighbourhood restaurants. At the table beside us, several generations of locals shoot the breeze over their tapas. It‘s clearly not enough, though, as a teenage girl runs up and presents one of the men with a giant sandwich brought from home. Rather than chagrin, the waitress merely laughs and serves up another round of drinks. Cultured and warm, Alicante is the Costa Blanca’s real package deal.

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