This weekend I visited the city of Alicante in Spain, something I had booked a while back when I had been sick and not realised that it was a long weekend. My flight was out of Luton, one of the more increasingly popular airports located out of Central London. For my first time flying out of Luton, the entire experience was quite easy though was a very early (4:30am) start to Saturday morning. First I had to get to Marble Arch (20 minute walk) so that I could catch a bus that dropped me off at the airport in about an hour, and that’s two hours before my 8am flight. It was a painless enough experience and by the time I got on the flight, an early-morning nap was well deserved. I found Luton busy for such an early time in the morning, and was further amused (or should I be more worried) by the number of people that were sitting in the bar and having a smoke and/or a beer.

After arriving in Alicante after a rather uneventful flight, a short forty five minute bus ride costing only €1 dropped me off directly in the city centre, right by the beach. Central Alicante is small and easily walkable with both a bus and train station connecting it to other major cities including Valencia and Madrid. The beach and harbour is an important aspect to this seaside town, and I definitely appreciated the closest one, Playa de Postiguet, for the entire weekend. It was great to be relaxing, soaking up some rays, though not as many as what some tourists looked like they had, and great to be walking around in sun with the very moderate temperature of 22°C for the entire weekend.

There are plenty of things to keep you occupied in Alicante, with loads of shopping (though a little quieter this Easter weekend), lots of amazingly detailed buildings and plenty of cafes, restaurants and bars to bide your time. Near to where I was staying, the Plaza de Toros, or the local bull-fighting building was absolutely stunning but it would have been good to see one actually on. The port is worth walking around, if not just to see the stunning boats and indulge in the buzz of all the cafes filled with people eating tapas or just enjoying the sun. This applied the same to the main walkway by the water, Paseo Explanada de Espana that really lit up at night time.

The Spanish way of life was really interesting as the lunch kicks off really quite late starting to get busy around 1pm and going until 3pm or later. Stores close in the meantime and don’t really start happening again to really quite late (think 10pm or later). In between there is plenty of time for people to grab tapas, but things were only really starting to get active very late at night. The plazas fill with families and kids playing football (or soccer for those back home) whilst the bars, restaurants and clubs pump out music crowded with livelier and generally younger groups.

See more pictures of the day here.