A beautiful seaside town

A lot of good travel stories start in an airport and this would be one of them. If you know anything about airports they are expensive for buying virtually anything and waiting in them typically isn't much fun.

Then again, airport lounges tend to help. Less crowded and in our case they are a free perk with our credit card. In a place where nothing is free, the lounge is very nice.

Now we travelled Ryanair which means we wanted cheap. Nothing is free on Ryanair and seat selection often means you are either paying money of stuck in the middle of two people. Imagine my surprise when I got put in an interesting seat...with actual legroom!

Now the trip was delayed and late at night. That pretty much made things suck. I did get some nice views from the air with my window seat

And leaving late means we arrived in Alicante really really early in the morning. Something like 2am. Ugh.

Still the bus was still leaving from the airport at that time although it was only every hour. I was tempted to get the Cabify app and call a taxi but when people were lining up and the app said the bus would arrive in 6 minutes it seemed like getting a bus and figuring out public transit was the way to go.

My wife put on a smiley face for the camera but she was exhausted from the long long day.

and when I was looking at the deserted streets late at night I will admit I was half thinking to myself... Am I crazy for walking the streets of an unknown town at a time when no sane person should be awake?

Honestly though I don't think I had too much to worry about. The way to the hotel was only 3 minutes long, well lit, and honestly very pretty at 3am or so.

We were so happy to finally rest in our room. We noted the wine and chocolate that was given to us by the hotel.

Mostly thought we just wanted to go to sleep and the bed was ready and waiting for us after a long long day

The next morning we awoke to a bright and sunny day and true the view from our window wasn't exactly stunning but then again, not terrible either.

And the street in front of our hotel didn't exactly saw that we had an upscale address in the middle of something picturesque.

And unfortunately the plug adapter we brought to convert from Canadian to European plugs wouldn't fit in their odd receptacles here so our laptops and cellphones were dying and I really didnt want to tackle a foreign city without speaking the language and having no google lens. So, we headed to a local store to buy a local cellphone charger :)

On the way back we found a street market with lots of local produce. There were fruits, vegetables, nuts and all looked very fresh.

We then returned to the hotel and took some time to charge up our phones before our first forray into the city to see what it had to offer.

Now if I had my way? I wouldn't really head out much. I'm much happier just sitting in the hotel room and going out to the pool to relax. So I went to check out the amenities in the hotel.

It had a nice pool and a nice lounge area.

Plus it also had a hot tub and exercise area but they were pretty cramped. The thing that made me a little sad was that there was no free breakfast. That is a typical perk for Platinum Marriot members like myself but here there was a $20 USD discount which wasn't even half price for the buffet which was...not terrible, but not what I had become accustomed to at Marriott Properties.

After breakfast?

First trip into town and walking down the famed road by the beach was out first trip out.

We were just steps from the pathways near the beach

I was amazed by how large the trees were and some of them must have been a century or two old by how large they were. Others formed an canopy that stretched an entire city block long. But the trees were only the first part then they had their famed walking path with palm trees and 3d style bricks that made it look wavy without actually being anything other than flat.

We continued on and found an athletic group dancing and jumping by the marina. The music was pumping and the guys were break dancing and generally doing really cool acrobatic stuff.

It would have been way more interesting if I had taken a video but.... well, I only got photo's

From the marina we saw San Bernadine castle which would be our go to place for the next day.

And a really cool building in a nice square

And we just kept on walking and noticed the actual beach area. I suppose it was a beautiful beach but wow was it crowded. I don't think I would want to hang out with quite that many people.

Remember the trees which formed a canopy?

However, once we hit the road out of town we knew that we had walked far enough and decided it was time to return back to the hotel.

But not before taking a few more pictures of the beach :)

Now honestly I would be happy with that as my day. One trip for shopping. One trip for sightseeing. But my wife wanted more clothes for while she was in town. She also didn't want to buy expensive clothes because we are leaving on Ryanair and we have incredibly limited space in our luggage.

Result: Thrift store. BIS to be exact

It is actually designed as an "upscale thrift store" which steams and washes all their clothes before putting them out and them marketing them as upscale. Honestly it was a nice little store and best of all the prices were reasonable AND they had a place where a husband could sit while waiting for his wife to be done shopping.

After all that? My feet were sore and I was tired. My wife? She wanted to hit the gym.

I thought about it and .... nah.... I was done for the day.

... and that was my first day in Spain. Overall enjoyable but tiring.