The province of Alicante is a dining paradise, says Ferrán Adriá and I agree. It makes for a great gastronomic destination. The Restaurante La Finca of Susi Díaz in Elche just received its 3rd Repsol sun during last Monday night´s gala.
And the bar at Nou Manolín in Alicante ciudad inspired French chef Joel Robuchon´s Atelier.
Here are some of the excellent dining destinations in this province.
Fun fact, probably to me only. My favorite DJ on the planet lives in Alicante.
Other than that, I’m not terribly familiar. Is there enough to see and do from the tourist perspective?
@Ziggy
From a tourist perspective, there honestly isn’t a great deal----the Castillo de Santa Bárbara, the MACA (Museo de Arte Contemporáneo–takes about 10 min.), el Museu de Fogueres, el Museo Taurino…a stroll along the beautiful seasidepromenade, el Paseo de la Explanada.
The Mercado Central is great for a stroll around, and in summer the beaches. And a trip out to Elche (train, bus or car) for the date palm forest and a blow out meal at Susi Díaz’s La Finca.
There’s wine touring at Bodegas Enrique Mendoza and the castle of Guadalest if you have a car.
We go for the food and combine it with Dénia.
It’s an interesting question. Before going I saw several online posts/videos/etc that agree with Maribel’s perspective. But I just spent a month there and had a completely different perspective. I guess it depends on what you’re looking for as a tourist and from your time there.
We thoroughly enjoyed Alicante and were never bored or out of things to do while we were there. I’m not sure why such drastic differences in perspective when it comes to Alicante - so the following are guesses (and biased guesses because - well - I only have my uninformed guesses). If you need to be entertained all day, maybe you will run out of things to do quickly. But people travel all over the USA, to places I’ve been, stay for a week, never bat an eye - but arguably these places have nothing really to do or are incredible pains to get around to do things.
Alicante had a lot to do - granted all these things are “small” or “quick” things to do, so if you need to fill up your whole day with “things” then you can go through them fairly quickly (but, many of these are also free). We picked one or two a day, walked from place to place easily, stopped for tapas, lunch, a glass of wine/vermut, etc. Things like - MACA (contemporary art), Fogueres Museum, MUBAG (fine art museum), the Castle, Bull Fighting Museum, Nativity Museum (was under construction while we were there), Ocean Race Museum (didn’t go), there is also a palm park in Alicante as well as in Elche, MARQ (Archeological museum, which if you don’t speak/read Spanish exceptionally well you can skip IMHO). And there is a beach on the edge of town if you want to spend a day on the sand.
Architecturally, the city isn’t much to look at - no argument there. But there is the old part of town and Barrio Santa Cruz which are cute and worth wandering the small old streets. It’s just a small part of the city though, not the whole town.
There is also a Tram that runs from Alicante all the way up the coast to Denia. It’s roughly $1.40 a ride if you pay per ride, but if you buy the 10 - 20 (or I think also 30) “ride” card it’s under 50 cents a ride (less the more you buy) and a single card can be used by multiple people (well worth getting IMHO). You can take the Tram to spots nearby - San Juan Beach (watch all the beach volleyball, there was an ultimate frisbee tournament going on while we were there as well), to the bottom of San Juan beach and walk around the Cabo de la Huertas (Cap de l’Horta). Or take it further - Campello (see the Illeta dels Banyets - old archaeological site with ancient fish pools and walk part way back on the beach until you get tired and take the tram back to Alicante), Villa Joyosa (cute harbor and several chocolate factories which have tasting rooms - they call them “museums” or “tours” but they really are just tasting rooms IMHO), Benidorm (which has no appeal for me but some people love it), Altea . . . . and so on. All without needing a car or really any stress of getting there and back (all day trips). And then Elche (we didn’t go, next time) or Murcia (we did go, a crazy cathedral architecturally speaking IMHO) are easy train rides (or bus) from Alicante. In the summer, the boat out to Tabarca island (wasn’t running in the winter).
There are also festivals or events (small but there) all the time. There are the “big” ones (Hogueres, etc) but also tons of smaller ones as well. This weekend there is a food truck event, a art/craft fair, and a small neighborhood festival in the San Blas neighborhood - and that’s what I know about (and I’m back in Boston). None of these are major international events, but they are enjoyable to participate in even as a tourist.
So I guess it’s what you make of it and what you “need” or “expect” as a tourist.
Thanks, Thimes, for your perspective. You actually mentioned many of the reasons why it´s become so attractive to US and other expats for a long stay or a permanent move, along with much larger Valencia.
I actually spent a summer studying in Alicante long ago and enjoyed the experience, even though I´m not a beach person. I was kept busy in the mornings with my classes and on weekends took excursions. We took the ferry to Ibiza from Dènia and a boat from Alicante to the island of Tabarca, which I forgot to mention.
I also didn’t mention that as you note, a very festive time to be in Alicante is the Noche de San Juan, June 23, to enjoy the bonfires (Hogueres) and other festivities. That I. really enjoyed and hope to go back for the festival soon.
I’ve never been to Alicante but we had, I think, four full days in Denia last November. I think Alicante, Denia, visits to Javea and Elche, and ferry to Ibiza–right there you have the plan for 10 days or more, I imagine… Or skip Ibiza and include Valencia.
I would skip Ibiza, having been, but I’m not a beach/nightclub person, and would certainly add Valencia to the mix. The old, upper white town of Altea for me, was worth an hour,'s stroll, and the bottom of Altea is in my eyes very overbuilt.
On our last trip to Alicante (after Valencia and Dènia) we spent 4 nights, not needing or wanting to do much sightseeing at all, other than the sights that I mentioned and some wine touring, but instead we engaged in relaxing, strolling and really great dining.
You. couldn’t pay me to go back to high-rise Benidorm, but many, many Spanish and other foreign retirees love it!
A Valencia-Dènia-Alicante-Elche vacation is for me, the great combo, but my trips are often food focused. And since they are so food focused, I would go into the Alicante hinterlands to eat rice at Elías in Xinoret or at L’Escaleta in Concentaina. But I will drive for miles for a great arroz en paella. 
If you want to add Javea to the mix, you could add a night.
I would fly into one airport, either Valencia or Alicante, and out the other and rent a car for touring between the two.
Ibiza was fantastic back in the late 80’s early 90’s , but you couldn’t pay me to go back there now 
. We liked it so much, we went two years in a row.
Alright, a quick follow-up post while my brain is back on Alicante 
Thoughts and lessons from Alicante . . . .
Be brave with your Spanish - I took Spanish in High School (which was about 35 years ago now, don’t do the math), so all I know is what I remember from then. BUT, the people in Alicante were so great letting me speak in Spanish and replying in Spanish. In fact, the first two weeks we were there, we really only spoke Spanish. We then had 2 American friends visit, who don’t speak Spanish, and places where people only spoke to us in Spanish now spoke to them in English. It was kind of wild but speaks to how generous they were with my broken Spanish and how “it is what you make it”. One of the things we loved about Alicante was how “Spanish” it felt (as opposed to touristy - which we definitely noticed in Altea and closer to Benidorm where menus and greetings were all English).
Be brave at the markets - the main market, the farmer markets, and local butchers/bakeries are often packed, with lines of people (or crowds of people more accurately) . . .it is super intimidating when you don’t speak much Spanish to figure out how to get in line and then the pressure of ordering when you know there are tons of people waiting and they are trying to get through everyone quickly. But it’s worth it, everyone was super nice when it was finally my turn, very helpful and you walk away with great stuff and feeling very accomplished. I start with just remembering 3 weights since everything is in kg and let’s face it, I’m American. . . . 100g (about 1/4 lb), 200g (about 1/2 lb) and medio kilo (500g or about 1 lb). Not exact but close enough and easy enough to remember under pressure.
Napkins - I can’t tell you how much I dislike Spanish napkins (not just Alicante, all over) . . those little waxy napkins in the dispenser that are everywhere and that everyone just throws on the ground. That’s a tough one for me.
Lunch at 2pm - I actually really loved having my big meal of the day at around 2pm. But I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to dinner at 9-10pm, even if it is just a small meal. We almost always had a tapa earlier in the evening and called it quits before true “Spanish Dinner” time. Which was fine since we had such great lunches.
Menú del dia - many many restaurants have a “menu del dia”, essentially a fixed priced menu for lunch. They ranged from 11 euro to 20 euro (our experience), generally 3 courses - great deals and we enjoyed them all.
Siesta - is still alive and well in Alicante. So many, many things close down from about 1-5pm (varies), which is perfect for a 2pm lunch . . . but really hard as a tourist dealing with the time change. And really hard when trying to do “day trips” out of Alicante - so keep that in mind!!!
If you’re shopping at the local markets, butchers, etc, it also makes it impossible to food shop on the walk home from your lovely lunch - since they are all closed for siesta. And TONS of things are closed on Sunday - so if you want food in your apartment in Sunday, buy it on Saturday!!!
Food words are tough - be brave. There are so many food words, some are hyper regional, it’s a real language struggle. They have fish we don’t have, sooo many types of shrimp, and then all the different “cuts” of meats (we have this in English but you don’t realize it until you have to try to translate menus). Google translate helps a lot, but we honestly never had anything we didn’t like. And we ate/ordered many things that we weren’t exactly sure what we’d be getting. BUT . . . it is super common in Spain to “order as you go” as opposed to ordering your entire meal at once like we do here in the US. So order one or two things, share, see how you did. If it wasn’t great, order another thing. I loved that part of Spanish food culture.
Get out - see the world.
Many thanks for this Thimes.
Just read this about Alma Cocina Viajera - mentioned above in this very local, very cute “hidden” food court (Curruca).
I didn’t realize the chef had worked for Dabiz Muñoz at DiverXO in Madrid. Makes me even more upset we never made it 
Next time.
(Spanish link but you can always just translate the page . . . )
I’m putting it on my list.
