Another destination on our way towards Alicante.
We had made a slight error in our calculations whilst in Northern Spain and assumed we would arrive in the Alicante region by early December. Experienced Winter in Spain travellers had advised us to book somewhere for December as it gets very busy. We innocents abroad soaked up this intelligence and booked a campsite South of Alicante for a month. By the time we realised that we would be beyond there by mid November, it was too late to change. So, we decided to make the most of it and give the places we stayed more of our attention than usual.
Our Spain guru from MMM, Andy Stothert, had kindly visited this area and written about it. He advised that La Vila Joiosa was exactly that. With great expectations, we studied our ACSI guide and identified a nearly new campsite at the very location. We tipped up unannounced and were fortunate to be given a very pleasant pitch with mountain views. We met some very nice people there too.
On the second day we decided to walk down to the old port. It was quite a trek through some very unprepossessing back streets. However, once there, the seafront was interesting and there was a well developed promenade along to the old town. In fact, the port end was not up to our exacting standards so we didn’t return. I did spot this rather unusual figurehead on a boat that was under construction.
Our next trip to the town involved a visit to the Tourist Information office, as usual in Spain, cunningly hidden! The gentleman in there was very informative about the five chocolate factory shops/tours and not much else. We accepted a map of the area and followed our unerring sense of direction towards the bits that looked interesting.
The old town is renowned for it’s colourful buildings. There is not a lot more to the town but it is comprised of the typical Spanish old town narrow alleyways and has a charm of its own.
We had a couple of trips out from here and they are documented on the next post.