Alicante, 31st May

The Mediterranean!
Finally!

Alicante was quite commercialised - the immaculately paved esplanade presented McDonalds, Burger Kings as well as tiny ice cream boutiques to the beachside walkers, and the cranes of a port hunkered over the horizon to the south of the main town.

We walked around the back of the rock outcrop and wound our way up to Castillo Santa Barbara, taking about three hours. From the top the view of the city was dusty and hazy, the sounds of the many construction sites a few blocks behind the seafront wafted up to the battlements.
The castle was ruined, and quick to explore apart from a few fallen arches and shallow dungeons which broke the place up a bit - there was a visitors' centre but it was closed. We wandered back down into the town and bought some food for the evening's meal, wanting to take advantage of the kitchen in the pensíon.

31st May 1999, 2302hrs, Monday, Night. Dark-duh. On Alicante pension roof. Alicante is like a tourist island town. It’s the gateway to the Costa Blanca, and whilst comparatively quiet now, is still a bit of a hectic building site/crumbling building/demolition zone 3mins walk away from the beach. We took the un-logo-ed option on the screen from Barcelona, which turned out to be worthy of a logo. 2200 peseta supplements ahoy. The train was really comfortable, and we got given headphones for the ‘in-flight’ films they were showing! Today we climbed the hill/mountain to ‘El Castillo de Santa Barbara’ above the town, went to the beach, put together a package to send home, made a pasta, tuna and sweetcorn dinner and enjoyed a couple of San Miguels each on top of the pension, looking up at El Castillo and the huge rock outcrop it rests on, brilliantly illuminated.