First Impressions of Alicante? Two Thumbs Up

So far, so good. Getting settled in has been easy during our first 12 hours in this city on the Costa Blanca of southeastern Spain.

Taxi ride from airport: $20. And no waiting. We took our luggage off the carousel, walked outside to the airport’s taxi stand and found a driver right away. (Meanwhile, my apprehensions about spending the next six weeks in this city were eased by the many advertisements we saw in English on our trek from the gate to baggage claim.)

Check-in to our Airbnb apartment in the San Blas district: No problem. The key was in a lockbox on the moped parked in front of the building. Really.

It’s a moped kind of town.

Connecting to wifi: A snap. Our European outlet adapters fit. Phones, tablets, laptop worked instantly while they recharged from the long trip. We even logged in to our Neflix and Prime Video accounts on the Samsung smart TV, whose remote control is exactly like ours back home.

First night’s sleep: Not bad, though it’s always an adjustment with this much time difference. Spain is six hours ahead of Eastern time in the U.S. The neighborhood was nice and quiet through the night, except for the occasional cawing of seagulls reminding us we were in a coastal city. What a lovely sound!

Most important, far away from the United States, we woke up for the first time in a long time with calm hearts and quiet minds.

We took it easy this morning with coffee, two pastries, an orange and a kiwi fruit from the market next door, then hit the sidewalks for a stroll to the harbor on the Mediterranean.

It was in the high 50s and windy at noon, so a walk to the harbor jarred Ted and me out of our jetlag.

So did a coffee at one of two El Corte Inglés stores within an easy walk of our place. (Both have Starbucks, so that’s where we bought our coffees, I must admit, though we passed nearly a dozen local coffee shops. We needed “easy” this morning.) We discovered these gleaming, all-purpose, multi-level El Corte department and grocery stores on a trip to Lisbon years ago. They are outstanding.

There is a beautiful Zara home goods store nearby, too. The Zara brand is popular worldwide. There are a few stores in the U.S., though we’ve never seen them.

A good vibe

All along our walk, I felt the vibe of a busy but not hectic Monday morning in this city of 380,000. Passersby were smiling and courteous, walking briskly but without that frantic edge one sees in larger cities in the U.S. The sidewalks are clean and, if homelessness is an issue, we didn’t see much evidence of it on our first venture out today, though, admittedly, we only viewed a small slice of life our first day here.

We had a late lunch at a tapas bar Ted found (he knows how to pick ’em!) on the Yelp app on his phone. El Canto was busy at Monday lunch hour. We marveled at how a single waiter served about 20 tables and worked the front door to check people in. The service was good but leisurely; we had time to absorb the atmosphere of the place, and the food was divine.)

At El Canto, they slice the ham by a window at the bar.

You can have a drink outside while you wait for a table.

The shrimp and garlic were excellent.

Having eaten not much but sandwiches and snacks on our flights here (Atlanta to Amsterdam at Alicante), we ordered salad, too.

“This is the way salad should be,” Ted said after the first bite, and I agreed.

It was a combination of fresh lettuce, juicy quartered tomatoes, green and black olives (with pits), a chunk of tuna, a few anchovies and a wedge of mild cheese. If there was dressing on it, it was only a light blend of olive oil, lemon juice and salt, letting the flavors of the other fresh ingredients sing through.

We’ll definitely return to El Canto during our stay.

On our walk home, we bought some groceries for dinner. Then we checked out the opening hours for the many businesses in the same block or within a block or two of our apartment: a bakery and restaurant called Mar de Pan (Sea of Bread–it is!), an electronics store for both Apple and Android products, a farmacia, barbershop, nail salon and … best of the best … a used bookstore!

We also enjoyed the street murals, like the one pictured at the top of this blog. And how refreshing to see recycling bins on practically every street corner.

The last shot I’ll feature is one I took from the balcony of our apartment last night at 8:59. It has a bit of a Rear Window feel to it, but it provides a nice glimpse of the neighborhood that will be our home for the next six weeks.

After Day One, Ted and I agree: We think we are going to like it here.

Heck, we already do!