Rest and Relaxation in sunny Alicante
A few weeks ago, one of our advertisers, Seaside Travel, placed an great offer in the paper for a Christmas shopping weekend trip to Alicante. Hartlepool Life staff thought it would be a good idea for some “R&R”. I Googled that and found it stood for “Rest and Relaxation”. In other words, a good excuse to skive. And I guess that the word “skive” must come from the French verb, “esquiver” which means to dodge.
The price of the flight and two nights in mid-December, being less than a meal for two, a dozen of us booked up. The trip came the day after my 3rd Christmas concert with Hartlepool Male Voice Choir. Just a few short hours after the last musical note, the temperature rose from freezing to a pleasant, unseasonal 20°C.
After checking in to the hotel, in a seaside resort between Alicante and Benidorm, we enjoyed a few tapas at a beach bar, accompanied by several glasses of cava, the Spanish Prosecco. The temperature proved even higher under a lovely sun and clear blue sky.
The following morning, Sunday, we hopped on a bus to Alicante Marina which was very busy with locals and tourists enjoying a coffee in the sunshine and watching an enormous parade of Santas on motorbikes.
The old town offered even more entertainment with a succession of choirs singing on the footsteps of the Ayuntamiento, the city hall. The cobbled streets were laden with tables and chairs from adjoining bars and eating places, awaiting drinkers and diners.
For lunch, we opted for a restaurant on the marina. A marina, a few acres bigger than that of our own, in Hartlepool. Many gigantic yachts that spelt money were tied up to the moorings. We enjoyed a set “menù del dia” for a mere €14 which comprised nibbles, salad, starter, main course and dessert and spent a relaxed afternoon in the sunshine. My Spanish had come in handy most of the weekend, until it was time to back to the hotel in an immaculate electric tram. I misjudged the length of the street where our hotel stood and ended up a kilometre or so away. Clocking up a few hundred additional steps made everyone long for a power nap before heading back out for the last night of a very pleasant “R&R” trip.
When we arrived back at Alicante airport for the return flight, we were faced with a 3-hour delay, a blessing in disguise for some of us who enjoyed filling the long wait by doing the round of the duty-free shops. This was after all supposed to be a Christmas shopping trip.