My travel in Europe:
From Alicante to Barcelona, Spain 2023

Content:

• Planning the tour from Alicante to Barcelona
• Day 1, Stockholm to Alicante
• Day 2, Alicante old town
• Day 3, Alicante castle Santa Barbara
• Day 4, Alicante to Benidorm
• Day 5, Benidorm to Denia
• Day 6, Denia to Valencia
• Day 7, Valencia
• Day 8, Valencia to Sagunto
• Day 9, Sagunto to Castello
• Day 10, Castello to Peniscola
• Day 11, Peniscola Castle
• Day 12, Peniscola to Tarragona
• Day 13: Tarragona to Barcelona airport

Day 5, Benidorm to Denia

We have now speed up the pace and only stay one day at Benidorm, there isn't so much historical places for us to look at here. Next stop will be in a much smaller town, Denia.

Benidorm, Parc de L'Aiguera:

Instead of walking the busy streets to the tram station we walk through the park that we visited last evening, much nicer.

Looks like a palm tree, but this is a date tree.

The distance from Benidorm to Denia is about the same distance as previous tram trip, 51 km.

The park looks like a park we have in Stockholm city, Fatbursparken. If I remember correct it was a Spanish architect who designed the houses and the park.

A very narrow and high building.

We continue walking through the park to get to the tram station. It looks like they arrange concerts here in the park.

The tram station is on a much higher level than the park. We walked up this steep passage to come up to that level. Totally exhausted after this, we have the luggage to carry.

Benidorm, tram station:

We bought the tram tickets at the info desk, since we not yet under stand the ticket machine. Something about 4 Euros each even this time. Now we are ready to go with the tram.

Calp:

At Calp we have to do a change to another tram.

Note that the trams are not connected to electric wires, they have a Diesel engine.

After the tram station Calp we leave the coast and the tram take us up on the mountains.

The views from Spanish trams are not the same as the views we have home in Stockholm, Sweden.

Dinea:

The tram station in Denia is close to the old town. From here we have a ten minutes walk to our room.

The streets get more narrow when we closing in to the small hotel we had booked, Hostal Victoria. We got a room with a small balcony with a view towards the small street outside. There is no breakfast to get at this hotel but there is a refrigerator so we can buy some sandwiches and yogurt for our breakfast tomorrow.

The hotel is placed very close to the fort we shall visit today. On the way towards the fort we found this, an archaeological excavation, interesting but we couldn't find any information about it.

More information about Denia:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Denia (Denia, Wikipedia)

A stone from the Roman era tell us we are in the direction to old stuff.

Follow the signs to get to the fort's gate. The fort dominate the town so no problem to know where it is, the problem is to find the gate to it.

The signs are very nice done.

Castillo de Denia:

At last we found the gate and the entrance to the fort. For me who nowadays is retired get a discount on the ticket. Do forget to ask if there is a discount on tickets you buy, sometimes you get it sometimes not.

Already at the first level we got above the house's roofs in the old city.

A steep street take us up to higher levels.

It's so much history at places like this. But even if it's built at the 1tth century it's much younger than the Roman era, which is more than thousand years older.

Next level and we have a free view to the marina.

What makes the stone to hold together for many hundred years ? Our modern buildings normally doesn't last even hundred years.

Almost at the highest level. Here to the left is a cafe.

More information about the Parc de L'Aiguera (only Spanish):

• https://es.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Parque de la Aiguera (Parque de la Aiguera, Wikipedia)

The views are stunning, as always when we visit forts like this.

Almost like a Christmas tree. Now we couldn't get higher.

Is it a canon ball, or ?

A terrace in front of the castle that once stood here.

On the Eastern side of the fort, a lot of terraces down to the harbor. We could walk down there but don't think there is an exit there. Must walk all the way up again. We skipped that.

North-East direction.

Eastern direction.

The fort was built during the 11th century. Inside here we found a lot of photographs of the fort before they restore it. They have really done a great work.

More information about Castillo de Denia:

• https://www.denia.com/ en/ castillo/ (Castillo de Denia)

It was here the ball we saw belong, it was a knob to the pillar.

Fontanella:

We just wonder, is Fontanella the name of the fountain or is it the Valencia name for a fountain ? Here near this square we found a supermarket and bought some soda for us.

Marina El Portet de Denia:

We walked down to the harbor to see if there is something interesting for us. We found they have real fishing boats.

Otherwise it wasn't so much here to look at and very few restaurants. Now when I writing this I could see on a map that it was an archaeological excavation area at the other end of the harbor. We have to come back !

We walk back to old town area to find somewhere to eat. Little bit difficult when it's so late in the season, most of them are closed. But we know one place from earlier where they had tapas, small cheap ones that you can mix together as you wish.