Day 44 – EU – Spain [Alicante to Benidorm]

18/01/20

42.7km

  From Alicante (Spain) to Benidorm (Spain)

Europe

Between two highly touristic cities of the Costa Blanca – on an overcast but pleasant day

I was expecting today to be the first rainy day in a long time. As I left Alicante and the sun was rising in amazing colours over the sea, I made sure to snap as many shots as I could (no filter of course). This is one of the great pleasures of being on the road. Every morning I get to see a new sunrise, over a new landscape, a new city. It has never failed to energize me and put a smile on my face yet. How could it?

I had never been to this area of Spain, the Costa Blanca. Having lived in Scotland for about 7 years, these cities were often advertised as cheap destinations, served by low cost airlines. Both Alicante and Benidorm are still amongst the cheapest (and popular) holiday resorts in Europe for the Brits.

File photo (source: Wikipedia)

As I reached Benidorm, I saw a totally different picture from Alicante. Benidorm is heavily built, with very tall buildings right up to the seafront. The streets were filled with tourists, mostly foreigners. I read now that the population of Benidorm is made of more than 50% of foreigners. I cannot imagine how incredibly busy it must be at summer time! [* I did not manage to get a good picture to depict what I saw of Benidorm – the picture on the left is the illustration from the Wikipedia article on Benidorm which is a good representation of the place]

These are the last of the touristic hotspots on my route before I reach Valencia in another four days. The route today was one I enjoyed, 500m+ elevation and an inland road with few sneaky peaks at the sea. And there was no rain today – overcast and warm.

Check my daily run GPS data on or

Here is the map of today’s run: