Alicante

I was supposed to head straight to Denia (up the coast a bit) as I am booked at a resort there right now but I decided this place looks like it has character and I should stay here for a couple of days. Mostly by luck I have a most excellent hostel right under a huge (well really, really tall hill with a fortress/castle on top. And next door is a church and a block away there is another and another...and they all seem to have bells – the good thing about that is that I always know what time it is! Went for a walk this morning before the sun came up and managed to find a way up the hill (most ways are gated off till 10am) and got about 1/4 way up – took pictures and went down for breakfast.



...view from the rooftop patio
No, that is not a giant snail, it is a giant bell!



After breakfast I went all the way to the top, then down to the beach for a bit, but it was hot and I wasn't properly dressed, so now I’m sitting on the roof-top patio (with the church bell ringing about 10m away) as I write and put together pictures...



 



It is February, and the beach was crowded! Ok, so about the castle on the hill (Casteo Santa Barbara)... I know I went on about the one in Eivissa, mostly because it was so complete - including the old town still enclosed behind the walls, but this one is perhaps even more impressive. Not only is it at the top of a seriously impressive hill, but it is also huge! From this angle (down here on the patio) you don’t realize how big the top of the hill is, and consequently how large the fortress is.



a really long tunnel



The only reason this place loses any points is because there is no town, but that wasn’t the way it was built... It does have an elevator to the top however...and a really long tunnel to access it...Anyway, Ren liked it so much she is going to stay here a while and look down on everyone!





 



Saturday night...seems everyone goes out for eats and drinks on Saturday evening...and then there was the ‘parade’ – well more of a march to protest the austerity cutbacks (mostly it would seem to the public sector) so even more people were out (we’re talking in the thousands)! Speaking of public sector...everywhere I’ve been I notice the street cleaners out at dawn and other people cleaning and picking up garbage everywhere.

Perhaps if the average citizen could figure out how to use a waste bin...! But I’ve also noticed the average citizen is somewhat unconcerned by a lot of things... they seem to think someone else will take care of whatever... somewhat like a child with an overprotective parent. Anyway...I arrive in town around 8pm and things are just starting to pick up – by 10 things are really rolling (most restaurants/cafes/bars are open till midnight) ...and the club around the corner finally closed at 8 this morning. In this part of town there is a restaurant/cafe/bar every 20m it seems and most are doing a fair good business.



During my walk round town this afternoon I came upon another ...something...that could have been a fortress ...maybe? It was really big and a lot looked really old and could be really impressive if it was cleaned up. This one apparently was not a world heritage site (like the other two I've gone on about) and has been left to rot. Literally covered in graffiti, part of it simply serves as a convenient place to mount a bunch of communication antennas and part has been converted into a kind of playground...really quite sad... Does make one wonder who is paying for the upkeep on the world heritage sites... Speaking of graffiti, I came across some that actually had some true artistic value! (Bubble letters are NOT art!).

Trip total 11191Km.