Visiting Alicante, Spain

When I started this blog I wanted to write about my travels, both as they happened (or shortly after returning home) and as trips down memory lane. The idea was for this to both be a travel journal for me, and a place to share my experiences with other people who would be interested in hearing about or visiting these places. The thing about only writing about travelling though, is that it doesn't include writing about one's own hometown! I've often pondered what to do about this... So when I saw the opportunity to ask a friend to write a guest post about her visit to Alicante, you can bet I jumped on it! Annette is a family friend from Minneapolis. She has known me since I was 6 months old, when we moved there from Panama. Long, long time ago! ;o)  She and her husband Tim were part of the adventurous travellers who accepted my parents' invitation to join them on the week's sailing in the Saronic Islands in Greece to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary. They also joined in the visit to Athens and Crete and then came to Alicante for a week to enjoy our crazy holiday the Hogueras de San Juan! Here's Annette's tale of their visit to Alicante. Enjoy! :o)

Visiting Alicante, Spain                                                                         July 19 - 25, 2012

by Annette Gagliardi

As part of a larger vacation sailing the Aegean Sea and touring Crete, my husband & I spent the week of “Fogueres de Sant Joan” in Alicante (June 19 - 24, 2012). If you find yourself in Spain, Alicante is a wonderful place to see and to visit. We are lucky enough to have friends who allowed us to bunk with them, showed us the sights and did a fair amount of translation as my husband’s Spanish is non-existent and mine is deplorable. Our friends, Len & Paquita, are the ultimate hosts. Len organized our week on the sailboat, the Stressbuster, drove us around Crete and still had the generosity to want us in their home for the Fogueres week.

And what a festival the Fogueres de Sant Joan is! With fireworks at 2 pm each day, statues erected around the city over the several days of the festival, and a final night of fireworks and bonfires as each Hoguera is set ablaze in its neighborhood. 

The Festival:

setting up the "official" Hoguera in front of the Ayuntamiento

Hoguera Oficial Plaza del Ayuntamiento

Hoguera Alfonso el Sabio

Semana Santa: Domingo de Resurrección en Alicante 2011

Easter Sunday. Domingo de Resurección. Holy Week is over and the Church is rejoicing for Christ has risen! This makes for a very joyful procession on Easter morn! ;o)

I've only seen an Easter Sunday procession once before, when I was visiting a friend in a small town in Murcia about a decade ago, and it was something else! Very festive, big happy crowds, dancing thrones... (yes, the throne bearers made them dance!!! must have been exhausting) Quite a contrast from the sombre processions during the Semana Santa. I didn't expect it to be quite as much fun here in Alicante (small towns are always better than cities for these holidays!) when I went downtown last year,  and I was both right and wrong! The public were more onlookers than active participants, but those participating made sure it was a grand and joyous event! In any case, everyone was smiling (and cheering), which is always nice to see!

In Alicante only two figures participate in the procession for Domingo de Resurrección: Christ and the Virgin Mary. Each of them leaves from a different church (Christ from the Cathedral, the Virgin from the Iglesia de Santa María) and it is timed so they meet up in front of the Ayuntamiento at 12 noon and then head out together from there.

I made it down to the Plaza del Ayuntamiento with plenty of time to spare, and still only got a spot in the second row behind the barriers! Little by little the Plaza started filling up. Just in front of the Ayuntamiento doors  representatives of different Hermandades started gathering (they all participate together on Easter Sunday).

On either side of them were "regular" people who obviously knew they had to show up bright and early to get the best viewing spot. This one lady even brought a special friend with her! ;o)

Exploring the Province of Alicante One Hike at a Time

So things have been awfully quiet around here since I wrapped up the Christmas Markets theme... sorry about that! It's just that I've been really busy what with my number of students increasing and the fact that I've been heading out hiking around the Province of Alicante most Sundays! This results in being exhausted on Monday and what little creative juices I have left after preparing/teaching my classes have gone into transforming my hikes (via photo selection/editing + writing) into blog posts on my "main blog" (under the tag Hiking Alicante). I've been wondering if I should just import those posts here... but it kind of seems like cheating to post things twice! Plus in my view this is my "travel blog" and for me hiking around Alicante doesn't count as travelling... but since I realise it might interest other travellers I hope to see visiting here, I figure I'll at least dedicate one post to hiking in Alicante and do a short presentation on all the hikes with links to the original posts, and then keep updating it with successive hikes. What do you think? (oops!, turns out I have a lot more hikes than I thought... so I'm doing a couple of posts!)

Physical map of Alicante (wikipedia)

The Province of Alicante may be one of the smaller provinces of Spain (41 out of 50 for surface), but it is the fourth most inhabited in the country (probably has something to do with the 23.6% which are foreigners)! In spite of this there are some "empty" areas in the province, mostly abandoned rural spaces or mountainous zones, since most of the population lives in an urban environment. Most people who visit Alicante just think of the Province as one big beach, since the coastal area and sunny climate are the big tourist draw here. Surprise, surprise: the Province of Alicante is actually the third or fourth most mountainous province of Spain! And these mountains create some pretty big climatological differences between the north and central parts of the province (proper Mediterranean climate so more rain, greener) vs the south and along the coast (semi-arid so dry and brown). This means hikes in one area will be quite different from those in another part of Alicante! The three highest peaks in Alicante are the Aitana (1558 m / 5112 ft), the Puig Campana (1410 m / 4626 ft) and the Montcabrer (1389 m / 4557 ft). So far I've climbed the last two. :o)

I used to do a lot of hiking as a teenager (lots of my family holidays involved mountains), but hadn't done much since I came to Spain for college. I started up again in Belgium in 2010 and in New Zealand in January 2011. So when I came back to Alicante in February 2011 I was anxious to keep it up! Unfortunately I didn't know the paths around here, or who to go hiking with (almost none of my friends are hikers). So I did what most people do in this day and age... I Googled it! Yup, I basically stuck "senderismo Alicante" in Google and out popped the Centro Excursionista de Alicante! A hiking (and climbing, canyoning, biking etc.) group that's been around for 60-odd years and organises outings for its members (and "friends") on weekends! Only problem was... only 1 hike / month! I couldn't go to the first two after I got back, then had a damn cycling accident and twisted my knee in April, and so couldn't join them for a hike until September! Since then I've done most of my hikes with them (and I became a member in Jan'12), but also with another group I found, the Trenet Senderista. Also, the Provincial Government organises hikes in the Fall and Spring, plus I've been hiking with friends I made through the various hikes, people who know the trails well enough to choose a nice spot to go to and won't get us lost! :D

Now, without further ado, I give you: Hiking in Alicante 2011! (Clicking on the names will take you to the posts)

Semana Santa: Procesión de la Santa Cruz in Alicante 2010+2011

www.hermandadsantacruz.com

The Procesión of the Hermandad de la Santa Cruz (Brotherhood of the Holy Cross) on Holy Wednesday is definitely the most interesting and unique procession in Alicante. It generates a lot of devotion and admiration from its members and the rest of the population who show up hours in advance to find a strategic spot to watch it.

Part of what makes this procession so special is that it takes place in Alicante's oldest neighbourhood, at the foot of the castle. El Barrio de la Santa Cruz is your typical medieval mess: steep and narrow streets with lots of steps! At the top is its heart and soul, la Ermita de la Santa Cruz (small hermitage of the Holy Cross), from whence the procession begins.

Ermita de la Santa Cruz

Yes, I said steep, narrow, steps. So start imagining carrying one of the Pasos for a Holy Week procession through there... now imagine 3 of them. Now imagine carrying them UP and then DOWN. Why so many ups and downs? Simple, the hermitage is too small for these figures to set up there as a permanent residence, so on the morning of the procession they have to be carried up. Then in full regalia they get carried solemnly down, weaving through the old streets until they reach the Rambla and join up with the Pasos that started out from other churches in the city, all headed to the Cathedral. And after they reach the Cathedral? Well they have to go back up again! Which they do RUNNING!!! And since they can't stay up there... they'll need to be taken back down again to their permanent homes. Ouf! I'm just tired thinking of it! Walking around that neighbourhood is tiring enough without that weight...

Semana Santa: Domingo de Ramos in Alicante 2011

So, in yesterday's post I mentioned that we came across a surprise on our way home to Alicante from the Palm Sunday procession in Elche... As we were crossing town along the harbour, I noticed a lot of people on Alicante's main paseo, the Explanada. There was marching band music in the air... and the Palm Sunday procession still going on!!! Apparently we made it into town just as the procession was reaching its end. So I pretty much told my dad to go park the car in the harbour, my mom and I hopped out at a red light, and I hobbled over like crazy (bum knee? who cares!) to get some pictures and video of it all! :D

Cycling around the Marjal de Pego-Oliva in northern Alicante

(this post is in part adapted -and expanded- from one I published today on my other blog)

Ahhhh... what a lovely day yesterday! The sun was shining, the air was warm (HOT! bloody heatwave thanks to some crazy African wind: 35ºC!), the orange trees in bloom (AMAZING smells!!! like someone had just opened a bottle of orange blossom perfume!)... great day to go on a cycling tour of the Marjal de Pego-Oliva!

http://www.pegoilesvalls.es/cmpl.html

The Marjal is all that remains of an ancient lagoon that got isolated from the sea by sand dunes and then silted in thousands of years ago. It's now an ~ 1290 Ha expanse of agricultural lands (rice, oranges, figs etc.) and un-cultivated land criss-crossed by a series of canals and ditches that have been developed and maintained since the Arabs started cultivating rice here centuries ago and were also used to dry out some of the lands for orchards in the 18th century. The Marjal receives its water (necessary to be a marsh!) from the subterranean aquifer and rivers that flow in from the surrounding mountains. All of these of course depend on the rainfall in a given year (this is the part of the province that receives the highest annual rainfall). The permanent water level is usually quite near the surface, and in several places the water actually breaches the surface in the ullals or springs (some freshwater, some saltwater!). 

aerial photo from Parcs Naturals de la Communitat Valenciana website