Alicante

We docked in Alicante, Spain at about 10:00 a.m. I was actually ambitious enough to get up and go to the gym; twice out of how ever many days at sea. Jogged on the treadmill awhile and lifted a few weights, but I know I’ll suffer when I get home and back into my routine.


Alicante - it’s the capital of the province of Alicante which is also a Mediterranean port. It‘s an area that‘s been inhabited for over 7000 years. Hank and I got off the ship and took the shuttle into town. It dropped us off at Explanada d’Espanya which extended around the yacht harbor. We walked up to the old town section and saw the Basilica de Santa Maria. We also went to the Concatedral of San Nicholas de Bari which was built between 1616 and 1662 on the site of a former mosque. Even though a lot of people said they seem tired of churches, they all seem so beautiful with the various scenes and chapels inside. The old town area (Barrio de la Santa Cruz Ermita de la Santa Cruz) was somewhat neat in that it had small alleyways running through it that most cars couldn’t navigate. We saw the Museo de Belenes which was a nativity scene museum. We wandered through the alleyways, played the Alicante dogs (one of which brought me his ball) and generally saw the sights. We even saw a car pull up all decorated for an upcoming wedding. The Ayuntamiento was constructed between 1696 and 1780 and is the town hall. Beautiful architecture and inside there is a gold sculpture by Salvador Dali of San Juan Bautista holding the famous cross and shell and rises to the 2nd floor in the stairwell.

After wandering the Barrio, we caught the hop on/hop off bus - only we never hopped off. For 17 Euros it was an inexpensive way to just stay on and do the entire loop around the city which is what we did. We went up to the Castle of Santa Barbara which sits high over the city and port. It consists of 6.5 million marble stones. We went by the Central Mercado and the new part of town which looks just like any major city in Europe. After making our loop, we caught the shuttle bus back to the ship.

Alicante was an O.K. stop, but I think it would have been better to skip it and add an overnight in Cadiz. At least that’s what we told them on our mid-cruise questionnaire.


On to Ibiza, Spain tomorrow!