June 12 - Alicante with Grandkids

 To get a feel for Spain you need to visit a castle and an old town.  Alicante fit the bill.  We took the tram from Benidorm to Alicante which took just under one hour.  That part was boring.  We go off at the castle/museum stop since we knew the castle shuttle was close by.  Unfortunately the timing for both does not work well together.  As we arrived at our tram stop at the exact time the shuttle bus picked up people for the castle.  There is a ten minute walk to the shuttle bus pickup, so we had a thirty minute wait for the shuttle.  

From then on things went smoothly.  We wandered up to the second level of the castle with the kids and then sent them off to do the rest by themselves while we waited at a cafe.  After they had their fill of the castle we took the elevator down to the water front. 

Some very old very uneven stairs.

Arti exploring!

Views of the kids from our seats at the cafe.

Everyone was very hungry at this point.  The kids had something to drink at the cafe - Arti was afraid to buy a sandwich as you never know what will be in it.   So we headed down to the lower level to find the elevator down to the beach area.

The kids kept mentioning how wherever we went - their were no metal detectors - no one was worried about guns.  This is a great lesson on how much is wrong in America.  When they went to Terra Metica they had not had to go through a metal detector.  If you went to a school in Spain you would not have to go through a metal detector.  

Alexis, my youngest daughter always talks about these problems in the U.S.  She does not want her daughters to have to go through that fear!  I am so glad my daughters did not have to experience that.  Yelena and Arti have gone through that.  Arti in particular has come out of it with a fear of getting shot.  Also fear of going on public transportation because of crazy people and how dirty trams and buses are.  Here in Spain things are clean.  People seem to respect and take care of public property.  That doesn't mean everything is perfect - just a lot better than the States.  Arti kept looking for crazy people on the tram - but we never saw any!

But back to our day in Alicante.  We headed to the beachfront restaurants.  We had found a great tapas place when we were last here.  It was closed.  We chose a restaurant and found a table.  The table they led us to was half way in the sun.  Michael and Yelena were in the sun and very hot.  After ordering our drinks we asked if we could change to a table in the shade.  Waiter said OK - so we moved.  The drinks came.  Yelena wanted to try Sangria.  We wanted to share it and thought it would be a pitcher as it was a very large size.  But it was for one.  We asked for additional glasses.  There were only three on the table.  The waiter seemed to nod yes - but never brought them.  Then he never came to take our order.  I finally got his attention - and he took our order.  Still no glasses.  We are all waiting for something to happen.  Our waiter ignores us - no glasses.  So we finally start drinking from the same sangria glass.  We have been there for at least 30 minutes or longer.  People who came after us have already gotten their food.  

It's been 40 minutes or so - Michael leaves some cash on the table to cover the drinks and we just leave.  We have been in Spain for a month and a half and have never experienced this horrible service in a restaurant.  I really think the waiter was pissed that we asked to change tables -or maybe he was just in a really horrible mood.  But we moved on.  We found a lovely restaurant on a side street, not really a tourist place and had a very quiet - extremely wonderful tasty meal.  We were all happy.

The restaurant had very interesting textured walls.

And how do you tell which bathroom you should use?

And then we walked back through mushroom street so the kids could experience that. 

The church of Santa Maria.  No one was that much into going in - and it would have cost 36 euros.

Random street scenes.

And then we started wandering to the tram stop to go back to Benidorm.

The mercado - close to the tram stop.  

Another hour on the tram from Alicante to Benidorm and a short car ride to the rental and we are home for the evening.  Arti took advantage of getting into the pool most days.