Saturday 17 July 2010

Alicante Alicante!

After exams, a group of my dancing friends and I decided to take advantge of the happy sun in Spain, as based on sad past experiences, England is not known for it's sunny summers. Typically, this is the year that England enjoyed an Indian summer, but let's not go there... Overall the holiday was OK but I must say the place we ventured into was a tourist trap and a half, but if sunbathing, swimming and lounging on the beach for a week with no culture is your idea of fun, then this place is definitely a winner for a cheap holiday.


Despite the lack of local culture, the food I must say was rather good, although it saddened me to see that the main restaurant strip was filled with pubs and restaurants found in England.  Cuisine ranged from Italian, Chinese, American, even Irish but ironically none were Spanish which happened to be the Country we were actually in.  We even found cheese from Iceland on sale in a local newsagent!


As I mentioned though, the food was good along with the service and presentation so we did get our euros-worth in value.  Dishes included a lovely salmon parcel poached with red peppers, onions, carrots and potatoes. 

 
Salmon and vegetables oven baked inside a foil basket

I must say though, the star attraction in the food arena in my opinion was the ice cream.  Once I discovered the quirky parlour, I made an effort to visit it daily on a mission to sample their entire delicious menu.  Unfortunately I did run out of days as the undiscovered gem of a place was found- in my opinion too late.  But some of the delights sampled are shown below and the last evening of my holiday was concluded with a traditionally fun banana split shared with my fellow ice cream appreciater friend.


It wasn't all about ice cream though!  Lack of culture Alicante exhibited but the landscape was beautiful.  We went for awesome walks down the coast, along the cliffs, down the highway... and saw all sorts of weird and wonderful things including snails sunbathing on the fences. Like I said weird.  Wonderful things included a crystal clear sea, isolated rocky plains to sit on with friends to study the bible, cliffs high enough to see the different contrasts of the sea and landscape...  It's times like these when the full magnificance of Creation just hits me, leaving me in awe, a strange sense of connection and of serenity.  With that, I finish my memoir of Spain - viva Espana! 


Far Right: Snails on a fence

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