We left an unusually sunny London (typical we thought!) to land in Alicante where it was overcast and raining, but at least warm. We'd hired a car to drive up to Benidorm, and lovely Hertz upgraded us to a 307cc! This was very exciting for Ben who hadn't had much of a chance to drive ours back in Sydney. Ben had also hired a SatNav, which was a complete waste of time seeing as where we were staying the street didn't exist in the system, and the road signs were so good it was easier using the road map!! (I bet you here though he'll mention that we took a few wrong turns, but I blame Ben for insisting on using it because he'd paid for it!!) (sorry Inge, I can't comment due to pending legal action!).
Above: Ben happy to see the sun for the first time in a while!
We arrived at the Westin Real de Faula Golf Resort & Spa where we were staying. This is a new resort that sits on the hill above Benidorm, so there's still areas of construction (mainly the Spa) and they're still getting used to things we think. We were checked into room 423 only to enter to find clothing strewn around the place, and on enquiring at reception we find out that we're actually supposed to be in room 428! It was rather amusing. Since it was still raining, we just wandered around the resort with Ben taking snaps with the camera until it was time for dinner (about 10pm!), and just hoped for a sunny weekend to come.
We were lucky and the rest of our weekend was very hot and sunny. We spent our time lazing by the pool in the resort and ventured down into Benidorm to the beach. Benidorm is amazing, and not necessarily in a good way! It's a major tourist town and from the hill above you could almost imagine that you're looking out over Manhattan, it's just a mass of skyscraper apartment buildings. The guidebooks likened it to the Gold Coast, but at least there are some reasonable looking buildings there, in Benidorm they are just revolting. From the hill you can't see the beach, and from the beach you can't see the hill!! I was expecting a pretty poor beach, but was pleasantly surprised, and despite the multitude of cigarette butts in the sand, was actually quite clean. It was so hot though and so crowded I wasn't surprised that the majority of people stood in the water the whole time!
View from the hotel over Benidorm (you wouldn't know there was a beach on the other side!)
Benidorm architecture at it's finest!
More beautiful architecture and the view from the water (no sign of the hills behind!)
Benidorm Beach - didn't expect this from the other side of the buildings!
Lazing on the beach (and no I'm not topless, Ben just cropped the photo badly!)
After a lunch of yummy Spanish paella (it was hard finding somewhere that did something other than hamburgers and English fish & chips on the waterfront!), we utilised the 307cc and drove up the coast for a few hours stopping at various towns and ending up at Oliva. This was more to our tastes with a sparsely populated beach and houses (not skyscrapers) right up to the beach. We drove back via Calpe to see the Penyal d'Ifach (large limestone rock) and a beautiful sunset over the marina, before heading back to the resort and our last day of lazing by the pool. It was good to get away for the weekend and we feel much better now we're not such a pastey white!!
One of the many bull silhouettes on the roads (complete with testicles) and the first stop...
Mucking about with the camera! And Oliva beach one of the stops on the road trip.
Penyal d'Ifach at Calpe
Sunset over Calpe Marina
Ben and Inge xoxo
