Alicante City
Capital town with airport, marina and beaches
The Mediterranean location of this seaport has a special kind of enrapturing beauty.
Alicante city, wherever one roams, is pervaded with the savour of the sea, playing its deeply-felt role as a seaport and benefiting from an average Annual temperature of 19º centigrade.
The centre of the city contains a good variety of shops, banks bars and restaurants, including: "El Corte Ingles" (similar to John Lewis) "The Body Shop" and many boutiques, sports shops, jewellers etc.
Alicante is a university city, with various faculties and a series of technical colleges. In summer a variety of Spanish courses for foreigners are held.
The City offers an interesting range of cultural activities taking place in various centres around town, such as the Casa de la Cultura (cultural centre), which has a well-stocked library, a historical archive and keeps locals and visitors abreast of cultural movements by staging exhibitions, conferences and films.
In the month of September the National Theatre Meeting "Alicante an Escena" is held, along with the International Contemporary Music Festival. In December there is an International Puppet Festival.
Marina Alicante
click to enlarge
Alicante looks towards the sea, and does so from its famous Paseo de la Explanada, one of the most beautiful seafront promenades in Spain. "To be in Alicante is to be on the Explanada" wrote Juan Gil-Albert, and there is nothing as pleasant as strolling along this quayside promenade lined by four rows of palms, tessellated with marble in Alicante red, cream and black in imitation of the neighbouring waves of the Mediterranean.
Along the Esplanade there is a music pavilion where the Municipal Band gives concerts on feast days. Other parks in the city are the Canalejas, with an important display of giant fuscius; el Palmeral, located on the seafront along the Murcia road; Lo Morant, with an auditorium: and el Benacantil, with extensive pine groves on the Santa Barbara Castle.
Esplanade.
Due to its mild, inviting climate, Alicante has an easy, carefree nightlife all year round, although the summer season obliges it to continue into the wee hours of the morning.
There are many places to have a drink or a bite to eat around town, but we can particularly recommend the old city centre, known as El Barrio. You can find bars, cafés, taverns, cervecerías, pizza joints, mesones... each with its own style and personality, where the music never stops, from salsa to jazz, not to mention rock, sevillanas and others.
The "modern" zone (between Alfonso El Sabio and the Explanada) offers other types of entertainment, with elegant pubs, restaurants with famed cuisine, discotheques and dance salons, all with the most sophisticated of décors, where the nightlife is no less enthusiastic than elsewhere. In Summer, enjoy the nightlife in the Playa de San Juan.
click to enlarge
The mild climate makes beach-life feasible practically all year round. You certainly have a lot of beaches to choose from.
An open beach? La Playa de San Juan, with seven kilometres of golden sand flanked by a road enabling you to stop wherever you want.
A secluded beach? La Albufereta, an intimate, residential stretch of sand, protected by the headland of the Serra Grossa.
Santa Barbara castle 
The 16th-century "Castillo de Santa Bárbara" overlooks the city. Inside is the Colleción Capa, a permanent display of contemporary Spanish sculpture.
The present fortress (there were others before) was originally built by the Moors in the 9th century, though the oldest visible remains are those at the highest part of the castle and date from the 11th-13th centuries.
You can approach the castle by road, winding up the hill from the old quarter; if you are on foot, it is quicker to take the lift from the road behind the Playa del Postiguet, the lift shaft seemingly being right in the middle of the hill.