Alicante is a city in the Valencia Autonomous Community, sitting a little further south on the Mediterranean coast. It’s a smaller city than Alicante, the smallest population of the four cities in our list. Unlike Barcelona and Valencia, the city’s beaches are adjacent to the city core. Its “expat” community has a low percentage of Americans, consisting largely of people from Northern Europe. After doing a lot of research online, we had narrowed our neighborhood search to four: Garbinet, Mercat, Centro, and Ensanche-Diputación.

Our hotel was situated on the main street running through town, and directly across from Mercado Central, the biggest (and only?) mercat in the city. The hotel was easy walking distance to three of the four neighborhoods, and the Tram station to the fourth was relatively close. I’d definitely recommend the Hotel Eurostars Lucentum for people wanting to check out the city.

As a reminder or the criteria we were using to evaluate the neighborhoods:

  • Walkability: we want to be able to ditch cars entirely and utilize walking and public transportation
  • Café Life: a variety of cafés and restaurants to be able to dine at, preferably al fresco when the weather allowed
  • European Charm: several story buildings (but not too many stories), with interesting architectural details, balconies (usually tiny), and painted in bright colors
  • Green Space and Public Life: parks, plazas, promenades, and other places to sit, read, observe, and socialize
  • Lots of small stores where daily shopping could occur
  • Enough people on the streets for a vibrant feeling, but not so much that it felt crowded
  • Lack of nightclubs or other facilities where loud music would be heard late into the night.
  • Proximity of stores that support our hobbies (in our case, knitting, tabletop gaming, and art)
  • A feeling of safety and comfort for a gay couple in our later years
  • Places that supported a sense of culture and lifelong learning

Garbinet

The first neighborhood on our list was a place called Garbinet. This was one that my husband really wanted to check out, based primarily, as I understand it, on the amount of green space shown on map apps in the neighborhood.

First, though, we had breakfast at a churrería, Cafeteria Churrería Calderón, I found near the hotel. The churros in this part of Spain are not covered in cinnamon-sugar; instead, traditionally, they are served with a hot chocolate dip, which is delicious! 

After that, we got to Garbinet via one of the city’s trams, and as soon as we got out of the trolley car, I was certain I would not want to live there. It felt very suburban despite all of the high-rise, very modern-looking apartment buildings. While most blocks in other neighborhoods we’ve visited on this trip had stores on the ground floors with apartments above, almost all of the areas of Garbinet we visited had no stores at ground level unless the building was on a main road. We didn’t find much green space that wasn’t in enclosed apartment building courtyards. There were very few people out and about, but a lot of cars driving around. There were also very few grocery stores, and few of the little convenience stores that we’ve seen all over the other neighborhoods. Big parking lots spotted the area, and despite the dense population, it felt very car-centric.

We did find a shaded area in the median of a wide boulevard, with several benches for our daily “knit & read” time, and it was near a dog park. There were several people out waking their dogs, some on leashes, some not. We did see a few pairs of people who might have been same-sex couples, but it’s hard to be sure. There was also constant traffic noise.

In the end, neither of us thought the neighborhood was a good fit for us, so we opted to get lunch and dinner close to the hotel.

Mercat

Second on our list was the Mercat neighborhood, which features the city’s central market, our first destination. This one was a little different from other central markets in other places in that they put all of the meat vendors (and most of the seeds/nuts/legume vendors) on one floor, and the fish market and the vegetable market in separate areas of the lower floor. Most of the fish stalls were closed since it was Monday. I think I prefer central markets where the various kinds of vendors are intermixed, though I can’t say why. My husband had hoped we’d find breakfast in the market, but there wasn’t anything that really appealed, so we wound up at a Granier, a chain of cafes we’ve seen everywhere. A safe place when we’re out of spoons.

While at breakfast we noticed a lot of people wearing green shirts headed towards the Plaça Dels Estels, a roundabout in a significant intersection. It seemed a major protest for a city of that size. At the time we couldn’t figure out what the gathering was all about, but later research said it was a school strike.

We then did our neighborhood stroll. We noticed that the Mercat neighborhood had more one-lane streets and narrow sidewalks, and little car traffic. Some of the streets were tree-lined, which we always appreciate. There were fewer open stores along the streets, and more storefronts with “for rent” signs. The buildings definitely had the European charm thing going for them, though. Small balconies were common. Also, a lot of street art on longer stretches of wall, which we liked. Very few grocery, meat, or vegetable stores, though. Perhaps the residents there were comfortable going to the central market? I don’t know. While the neighborhood had the European charm thing going on, the lack of active storefronts made the neighborhood feel less vibrant, more subdued.

We did find a nice park to spend time in, Plaza Santa Teresa. Lots of trees, a monument to a former city mayor who led the city through a time of virulent disease, and even a little grotto for private rendezvous, though it was gated closed while we were there.

After such a rich breakfast neither of us was in the mood for lunch. So we picked up some junk food at a nice supermercado/convenience store, and went back to the hotel. For dinner, I found a nice Persian restaurant, Casa Tehran, which had good reviews. The staff were very friendly, but I got the feeling that for most of our meal we were the only people in there that weren’t members of the owners’ family. The food was quite tasty though.

While it wasn’t as bad as Garbinet, I didn’t put this neighborhood high on my list.

Centro (and a little of Barrio Santa Cruz)

The next day was all about Centro. This neighborhood has quite a few streets that have been converted to pedestrian malls or promenades. (There’s one on each side of the hotel we were staying at.) There’s a lot of foot traffic through these areas and lots of food, shopping, and nightlife to be had. There is also a very active stage theatre in the neighborhood. It’s very lively, especially at dinner time. Kinda noisy, but I didn’t hear any loud “thump thump” of big nightclubs. There was also a pedestrian mall that was painted in vibrant colors with giant, whimsical (fiberglass?) mushrooms along its length. The buildings in this neighborhood are definitely full of European charm, and there were some really nice parks, including one with some very old ficus trees, Plaza Portal de Elche, where we did our usual knitting and reading. This neighborhood also includes part of the well-known Explanada de España, a marble-tiled promenade that runs over 500 meters along the shore in Alicante. We walked along a small section of it. There are also a lot of restaurants along the Explanada, including some of the big American chains, and it had a lot of tourists and a lot of crowd noise. 

After dinner in a popular pizza restaurant halfway through the neighborhood, we wandered through part of Barrio Santa Cruz, an older part of town that presses up against the hill where Castell de Santa Barbara sits. It’s one of the oldest parts of the city, and one of the most expensive. We didn’t go up into the steeper parts, but what we saw included some beautiful buildings, an ancient church that we had seen in various YouTube videos, and quite a few lively restaurants. After all that, Centro could make a good home. It’s very walkable, has many amenities and green spaces, but there are parts I’d fear being too loud in the evening and night.

Ensanche-Diputación

Finally, we spent a day in Ensanche-Diputación. Of all of the neighborhoods in Alicante I had researched, this one was the most interesting to me. It fell somewhat short of my high expectations, but not significantly so.

This is a slightly newer part of the city compared to Mercat or Cento, and this was reflected in the architecture. Not much in the way of quaint and decorative buildings (what we’ve been calling European charm), but more had balconies, and they were larger. This neighborhood was very grid-aligned but had much fewer pedestrian malls. We did find what I’m calling “geek row” with two comic book stores (one with a good selection of novels and TTRPGs), a board/war/role-play game store, and two different nerdy collectibles stores all in the same block.

We did find that more of the stores in this neighborhood were flourishing, with quite the variety of retail offerings. It just felt more vibrant. This neighborhood also features two branches of the major Spanish department store, El Corte Inglés. Think of it like Macy’s, though in this case, one of those branches features a supermarket. Many of the streets were one way, similar to Centro, but there weren’t any pedestrian promenades that we found. There were some green spaces especially towards the southern end of the neighborhood.

In the evening dinner visit, I chose a place near a couple of nightclubs, only one of which was open at that point (21:30 or so). Absolutely quiet outside, few people on the streets. Very little car traffic as well as long as we avoided the bigger streets. As far as Apple and Google Maps could tell, there’s a total of four nightclubs in Ensanche-Diputación, so I don’t think noise will be too much of a problem.

Conclusions

So, four neighborhoods, one of which was a complete dud, and two of which could work if we chose Alicante as our new home. We are of mixed opinions of the city though. I felt it small, subdued, and without a visible queer presence. My husband loves the pedestrian malls of Centro and the relatively larger number of parks compared to Valencia. While the geeky stores were definitely a plus, we could not find a yarn store in the city core, which may be a down note for him.

Overall, I’m less impressed with Alicante compared to Valencia and Barcelona. It is a smaller city, and it feels that way. Not as great of a variety as the previous cities, and it feels quieter, more subdued. It’s also on a slope, so there’s a bit of an altitude change going from one part of the city to another. I very much appreciate the flatter terrain of the areas we visited in both Valencia and Barcelona! There are also fewer interesting attractions. Other than the beautiful promenade along the beach and a couple castles, there don’t seem to be many in the way of tourist attractions in Alicante. Despite that, some of the areas we visited felt full of tourists.

The tax situation in Alicante would be pretty much the same as in Valencia, which is a concern to us.

One thing that grew more unsettling as we spent several days here was that I never saw a Pride flag hanging from a balcony, posted near store doorways, or anywhere else. The laundromat we used at the end of our visit did have a bunch of small rainbow flags hanging from the ceiling, along with a Picasso-inspired mural along one wall. We did see a small number of queer couples walking around, but otherwise, there was no gay presence we found in Alicante. Quite the contrast to the other cities we’ve visited, and one I did not like.

Addendum: while there is no official Apple Store in this city, there is an authorized reseller whose interior copied the look and feel. While I’d rather have an actual Apple Store, this reseller would do in a pinch. Yes, having an Apple Store is a selling point for me.