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It’s creepy how accurate a Fortune Cookie could quite possibly be:

Even though Alicante is located by the beach, it also happens to be close to Elx, a world heritage site and the home of Europe’s largest Palm Tree Forest. On Sunday, I decided to take advantage of the free day and catch a train there. It’s only half an hour away from Alicante, and was relatively easy getting there, despite the language barrier. Getting back was slightly more disturbing as which train to catch was not too obvious, but I managed to get back in time for my flight.

Elx is a beautiful city, combining ancient buildings with the modern styling of gardens and newer buildings that seemingly flow together with ease. Numerous plazas and groves full of palms intersperse buildings, though the larger palm forests are slightly outside of the town centre. I went on the Historical Palm Groves Walk, though at only just over 2km was extremely easy to enjoy. There are also numerous museums and buildings depicting older ways of life and you can even stay in a hotel in the middle of the palm forest, though I would not necessarily say it would be worth the experience.

The forest itself is not as dense as when you think of the term forest, but seems more like a collection of palm tree farms, that put together makes up a significant part of the town. It could be the legislation that the local government put into place that makes it necessary to maintain all of these trees, but although the trees didn’t seem completely natural in their current presentation, still looked impressive to me.

Heading back into the town centre, I was lucky enough to capture the Easter day parade. Thousands of people, if not all of the townsfolk and other regional visitors crammed all the many streets where a procession took place. Bands heralded in the procession, closely followed by people that gave lollies to any kids in the crowd, then followed by a statue surrounded by flowers that I wasn’t sure what it was supposed to represent. Church members then followed the statue as townsfolk showered it with coloured printings of biblical pictures from the top of all the buildings that the rest of the townsfolk then quickly gathered. It was amazing sight to see and although I don’t quite fully understand what all of the parts represented, the community spirit and families that attended the parade astounded me.

Heading back to Alicante, I ended up grabbing a bite to eat and finally visited one of the city’s most impressive attractions, the Castle of Santa Barbara. Being on the clifftops above the city, this Castle is apparently one of the largest medieval fortresses in Europe. When you are standing on any of its higher levels, you can understand what made this such a prominent castle, with outstanding views of the bay, farmland and city. Retired cannons still mount some of its walls and there are plenty of gardens and things to discover to keep you occupied for some time.

Alicante is a great city to escape London and the warmth of its beaches and people are definitely worth experiencing at least once. See more pictures of the day here.

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.