Girls Trip to Alicante, Spain

When I initially chose Spain as my home base to study abroad, I had full intentions of traveling throughout the country on my weekends. To be completely honest, I feel like once I got here, I dropped the ball on this one. Last semester I was so caught up in traveling from country to country that I never really set time aside to explore right outside my very own city. Even though I am here for an entire year, I came abroad with quite a hefty bucket list that I now realize, is going to need a second trip after college.

So this semester I vowed to myself that I would see more of Spain. What made me want to study here in the first place is all the interesting history and unique culture, and I was not taking advantage of being here.

With an unscheduled weekend coming up, I decided it would be the perfect time to check out a more low key spot in Spain. Three of my other roomies were eager to join, so we planned a girls weekend getaway.

Palm trees and sunny skies

The night before we left, we booked our train reservations. It was going to be a 5 hour train ride along the coast to Alicante. Since we waited so long to book our tickets, we ended up paying a little over 100 euros round trip. I know we could have gotten them for about 30 euros each way, however that’s what ya get when you procrastinate when traveling. Unfortunately I’ve learned this lesson one too many times. We also ran into a few other problems when booking so late. My ticket wouldn’t process but it still charged my card so my 100 euro ticket set me back 200 euros until I could request a refund from the booking company. Nice.

view of the castle from the beach

When we arrived in Alicante, we checked into the Xhostel. This place was definitely in the category of a “hippy” hostel, but for 15 euros a night, there was no way I was complaining. It was slightly grungy but had a solid party atmosphere and some awesome free-hand paintings on the walls.

That first day, we dined at Piripi, and had the best seafood paella I’ve ever eaten in Spain. I’m sure it got a few extra points considering we were an hour past starving, but it was still a winner in my book. After that, we made our way to the beach to take in some afternoon sun.

beach in Alicante

Although the weather was nowhere near hot enough for swimming or tanning, just walking on the beach barefoot and taking in what heat we could get was a beautiful way to spend our afternoon.

Then we made our way to Santa Barbara Castle at sunset. The city of Alicante sits at the base of the mountain that showcases this stoned fortress. With the view of the castle in a far away distance, we knew we had a pretty steep climb ahead of us, and that was real soon. For a little motivation, we popped into a supermarket for a bottle of celebratory sparkling wine and continued on our trek.

This little climb was not as easy as we had anticipated. Somewhere along the way, there were signs that pointed to a lift that would take us straight to the top. Well, that lift was never found so we had to hike up this steep, dirt trail on our own. I luckily had my adidas (so euro), however some of my roomies had on cute little booties, which made their experience a lot more difficult.

view of the ocean from the castle

Once we got to the top, we were making our way to the inside of the castle when a police officer confiscated our wine and told us we could get it on the way down. With our reward taken right from our fingertips, everyone’s overall moral had been depleted.

We walked around the castle for the next hour, taking in a Birdseye view of the city below, still slightly bitter about the police encounter, but the breathtaking view shut us all up for the time being.

castle views

On the way down, none of us really wanted to ask the police officer for our wine back. Until Sydney (one of my roommates) volunteered as tribute. A few minutes later while I’m hiding around the corner, I heard my roommates and the cop in a conversation. I couldn’t tell if they where getting in trouble or not, so I poked around and saw they were just having a friendly exchange with the guy. Turns out his son will be studying abroad in the U.S. this summer, and he just wanted to chitchat with some Americans.

colorful walls around the city

That night we tried to go to a highly recommended restaurant but when we arrived, the place was overflowing and packed with locals. It also didn’t help that everyone in Alicante spoke only Spanish so we really couldn’t tell if we would be able to eat there or not. We stood in the doorway awkwardly for a solid 3 minutes while the bartenders were talking to us asking us questions in Spanish and the rest of the restaurant just stood there and starred. I very much felt like one of those “stupid Americans” at this point, so we ended up turning around and going to the place right next door.

Alicante is the first place in all of Spain I’ve had an issue with the language barrier. In all of my travels around Europe, I actually might run into one or two locals that don’t speak English, but it rarely becomes an issue. Here however, it was a whole different ball game. It was hard finding someone to speak English to, especially in the restaurants. It really reevaluated my Spanish speaking skills considering I had no other option except try to communicate with what I know. I actually really liked being forced to speak Spanish because I never have to do that in Barcelona.

The next morning we decided to explore a neighborhood in the old town called el barrio de Santa Cruz. This neighborhood was pressed against the side of a hill, with narrow back allied streets. Super quaint and super cute, exactly my kinda place.

el barrio santa cruz

Since we came in early February, we had no issues at all with having crowds of tourists.  In fact, many times the streets where completely empty as if the town had been deserted overnight. After making a few wrong turns(40 minutes later), we finally found the neighborhood we where looking for. Tiny white washed pueblos with royal blue trimmings lined the light stoned walkways. Each house was uniquely decorated in patterned mosaic tiles and colorful flowerpots that created an eclectic style. Walking through these streets made me want to live right there for the rest of my life. Sitting on my rooftop terrace, with a panoramic view of the ocean, sounds like a pretty good life doesn’t it?

eclectic home in el barrio santa cruz

Once we saw all the side streets a few times, we made our way to la Taberna Iberica. This local tapas bar was in the middle of the old town, on one of the many quaint back streets. A motherly woman greeted us at the door and signaled us to our table. Clearly, this would be another place that would be testing our Spanish skills. We eagerly ordered a pitcher of sangria for the table and when she asked what we wanted to eat (in Spanish of course), we just asked for tapas. With no menu given to us, we really didn’t know what to expect. Then a few minutes later she brought out traditional tortilla espanola with a side of jamon (Spanish ham). These tapas were AMAZING. As soon as we scarfed these down, she had a new platter of different tapas parading from the kitchen to sample. Throughout the course of the meal, she marched 8 different tapas to our table, each debatably better then the last. Before we left, she brought out complementary dessert wine and a traditional cake that was comparable to a flan with a coconut topping. Hands down these tapas where the best I’ve had so far in Spain. Which says a lot since I take my tapas sampling pretty seriously over here.

tapas

After lunch, we then made our way down to the beach, stopping at a local market along the way. Behind the market there were traditional dancers performing since it was Carnival weekend. Carnival is a huge festival around many Catholic countries in Europe. It does have some biblical significance, referencing the start of lent, however now it just seems like an excuse to throw one hell of a party.

traditional dancers at the market

That afternoon was spent leisurely strolling the boardwalk on the beach and then hitting up another bar. This bar was actually a dock hovering just a couple feet above the water. There we enjoyed another pitcher of sangria while we watched the boats in the harbor sail off into the sea. Clearly life in Alicante is really difficult.

After an hour of regrouping back in our hostel, we went to an Italian restaurant for dinner called Casa Mila Italia. Although everyone would have preferred some typical tapas, this restaurant was highly rated online and featured on many blogs so we decided to give it a go. The feisty little Italian man who owned this joint greeted us with full charisma and spunk. Just like the other place, the menu changed daily so he recited to us what was being served fresh that day. We started with a couple of appetizers, which were all lovingly made with high quality Italian ingredients. The best part of this dinner is when Sydney had to tell him she was a vegan and couldn’t eat any of his meats and cheeses that came from his families farm in Italy. He was completely baffled. His expression was priceless.  I thought he was either going to kick us out or faint. But eventually he laughed and made her a custom menu. We ate well that night, possibly too well for not even being in Italy. We all tried different homemade pasta and desserts and by the time we waddled out, all of us had full effects of a food coma.

Italian restaurant

That day we hit the jackpot with our culinary experiences, and all of us felt very content with life. After dinner we made our way to the main street where all the Carnival action was being held. We turned a corner and there was a sea of locals in full Halloween costumes. There were two stages, one was a DJ and one was a live band. Both stages had swarms of locals dancing, singing, and drinking. It was WILD. Not only were we not in costumes, but we also had two blondes with us, which made us complete targets for being tourists.

After walking up and down the main street a few times, a couple of the girls wanted to get back early since we had a 9am train back home.

Sydney and I still had more exploring to do. We went back to our hostel, drew on some sad looking cat whiskers to at least have an attempt to a costume, and headed back out to the festivities. We grabbed a drink at a bar on one of the side streets. We met a few locals, however they didn’t speak a word of English, and I only had a handful of questions I could ask in Spanish until it was an utter fail at communicating.

our sad attempt to a costume

Then we decided to take one more lap down by the beach to see if anything else was happening before heading back for the night. As we walked through hundreds of college kids dressed in full costume, a local stopped Sydney to strike up a conversation, however he only spoke Spanish and she only spoke English. His friend and I were playing translator, trying to help both of them out. Two of them spoke great English so we finally where able to have a conversation with some locals. We spent the next two hours talking in Spanglish and practicing our language skills all together. This was the first time in my entire study abroad experience that I’ve felt comfortable enough to practice my Spanish, or even needed to. Whether it was the confidence from the couple drinks prior or the friendly people, either way I was finally using my Spanish!

We eventually made it back to our hostel in the early morning and still caught our 9 a.m. train back to Barcelona. It was a kickback and relaxing kind of weekend. With great views, food, and company, Alicante was one for the books.