Tag Archives: Javea

The wing of our Boeing 737-800, somewhere over France

There and Back Again

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Not a Hobbit’s Tale in this case, but mine, about my recent holiday in Spain. I went with my brother and our respective other halves back to Javea in East Spain for a week of September sun and relaxtion, and it didn’t disappoint.

We had a reasonably early start due to the fact we had to fly out of Bristol (thanks for pulling out of Newquay, Ryanair…) but an easy drive led to a lovely smooth flight out which, as always, I loved every minute of. As nervy as it can be sitting on a plane about to fly, the second we start thundering down the runway I’m in my element.

The wing of our Boeing 737-800, somewhere over France

I didn’t even recognise the airport once we landed in Alicante, they’d built a brand new terminal and car park in the last twelve months which threw me right out, but a short queue at the Avis kiosk made me very, very glad that I chose not to go with Goldcar and join their 30+ person queue. I found we’d been upgraded to a BMW 118D which I was petrified about dinging, but luckily didn’t scratch once (despite once hitting a pavement in a manner that made it look like I was trying to get up on two wheels).

After a bit of sat-nav confusion we found the villa which was really nice. Not too big, not too small and a lovely pool. I won’t bore you with the details of every day out there, suffice to say there was a lot of dining out, a lot of reading, and a lot of lying around doing very little, and enough time in the pool to grow gills.

The Montgo mountain, looking across the bay at Javea

Getting home was a shock to the system, going from 37 degrees and glorious sunshine on Saturday morning to drizzle and 18 degrees back at home. Getting home was made all the more sombre with the bad news that one of our cats (Big Cat) had died while we were away. It was heart-breaking to be honest, it’s very odd to know he won’t be out waiting for me when I get home any more, and when the cat flap bangs it won’t be him, but he had a good life here and I know he’s somewhere else now, shouting at everyone else and sorting them out. RIP Biggie.

A week of highs and lows then really, but definitely a welcome break, and I can still safely say that the pasta at Lungo Mare on the Arenal in Javea will take a lot of beating. Autumn’s just about here, my favourite time of the year, and I can’t wait for it to start getting quiet and crisp outside.

Back to Spain!

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It looks like this September I’m going back to Spain for a week! This is especially good news, it looked for a long while like I might not be able to get away for a break this year, not a proper one anyway. Yesterday we confirmed a booking for a small villa on the East coast of Spain, just outside Javea. We stayed there last year with a big group of friends and it was amazing, the perfect mix of quiet and being not too far from town and restaurants. This time around it’ll only be me and my other half, and my brother and his better half too, but we certainly don’t seem to be sacrificing anything in terms of the quality of the villa or location. It’ll be the perfect unwind after the long summer at work and a good chance to recharge before autumn and winter set in on the run up to Christmas (yeah, I used the ‘C’ word).

There are so many parts of it I’m looking forward to that I can’t really list them all here, quite apart from spending a lot of hours in and around the pool, floating and reading respectively. Something about just being in the warmth and sunshine is good for the soul, it recharges you and makes you feel better in every way. I’m hoping that on at least one occasion we head back into the ‘new’ town at Javea along the Arenal, because there’s a few places I want to visit again. Namely:

Lungo Mare

The terrace outside Lungo Mare

Easily the best Italian food I’ve ever eaten, and probably the best food I’ve ever eaten. We came back here twice last year, the food was that good. It’s always a good sing of a place to eat when you see the place rammed full of people with more people queuing to get a table. I would kill to eat their Spanish ham and Italian sausage tortellini with garlic and chilli oil again.

Jalousie

Jalousie Cocktail bar

We stumbled into this place after a few drinks, and what a treat it was. A gorgeous cocktail bar, really atmospheric with amazing drinks. Every inch of wall space in there was covered in bottles of drinks and backlit, it was such a cool place to drink.

Bora Bora

We found Bora Bora up a side street after a night out on our way back to the taxis, and ended up staying there for hours! It’s a karaoke bar, nothing glamorous, but just the most fun place. Gin measures big enough fill a fish bowl, enough songs to keep even the most ardent karaoke fan going into the small hours, and fantastic atmosphere.

I’m sure we’ll find other places as well; we ate at a Tapas bar in the old town last time which was amazing, found a bar outside the old church serving generous spirits until the early morning, so I dare say we’ll find some great places in the area we’re in south of the town. I can’t wait now, eight short weeks to go!

¿Como Estais Amigos?

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One glorious week in very sunny Spain, that’s what I’ve just come back from, and it’s thoroughly depressing. The weather here is grey, rainy and horrible, and I don’t seem to have my own swimming pool any more, what’s going on with that??

Seven of us had a really nice flight out to Alicante from Newquay (after a few beers in the airport, and a few gins on the plane), and landed in Spain to the traditional Ryanair ‘fanfare’ which saw a slightly merry me cheer out loud. I’m surprised they didn’t charge us for hearing it actually, they charge for everything else… Anyway, after a quick beer in the airport we found the hire cars and made the 110KM journey up the Spanish coast to Javea, the town that was to be our home for the next seven days. The drive up was gorgeous, the motorway was empty and the scenery varied between beautiful coastline, mountains, gorgeous and the very alien Benidorm lit up like some kind of sci-fi moonbase from a ’50s comic book. The sat-nav guided us straight to the villa where we met up with the London contingent who got there earlier after flying into Valencia instead. There’s only one thing to do when you get to your villa – claim a decent room and get in the swimming pool! Ok, it was 1:30 in the morning, but that first swim was fantastic, I’d arrived. The villa was fantastic; six bedrooms, two kitchens, two lounges, our own pool, roof terrace and no-one within ear- or eye-shot.

Our pool, home of some of the finest pool volleyball ever seen!

There was a bit of an incident the next day when our eleventh somehow missed our greeting party at the airport and lost her phone, spent the rest of the day driving to the wrong town and arriving to find herself locked out of the villa as we’d all gone out for a meal, but that was quickly forgotten. The reason I was so descriptive with our journey to the villa is because the week itself was (thankfully) largely uneventful. We swam, lounged, read and drank a staggering amount of San Miguel and Cruzcampo beers. Pool volleyball was the flavour of the day again, although the amount of exercise it gave us was far outweighed by what we ate and drank. The evenings were when we mainly came to life, and we had a good explore of our surroundings.

Arty shot from the balcony at night, 30 sec exposure

One night we walked into the old town of Javea which was beautiful, and had obviously had some recent money poured into it, and ate at a lovely tapas bar. It wasn’t too cheap eating out, so nights out were mixed with more sedate nights barbecuing on our roof terrace/balcony thing, which included a murder mystery kit that someone kindly left at the villa and was hysterical. By far my favourite night out started with a wander along the promenade at Arenal beach in Javea, where we found a restaurant called Lungo Mare. It was an Italian place and packed with people, which is always a good sign when you’re looking for somewhere to eat. I’m so glad we did too, because despite not being overly keen on Italian food (hey, I don’t really like tomatoes or cheese – Italian’s normally a dead-end for me), I can safely say I had the best meal of my entire life there. Fresh Tortellini filled with beef and Spanish ham served in garlic and chilli oil – it was obscenely good, I could happily eat only that food again for the rest of my life. After stuffing ourselves stupid on pasta and the largest pizzas ever, we found an amazing cocktail bar and had a few more drinks (are you spotting a theme here?) before finding our way to Bora Bora.

The promenade at Arenal beach, that's Lungo Mare on the right

Bora Bora is a karaoke bar near the beach with a seemingly non-existent closing time, and although it was quiet when we got there we owned the place! I was still trying to pick a song to start with when my name was called out to go up. Unbeknown to me one of my cohorts had put my choice in for me, so I got up and belted out (at least that’s how it seemed in my head) my rendition of Ain’t No Sunshine by Bill Withers. It just got better from there, more beer flowed, more gin (which seems to come in measures of at least triples!) and more songs including The Lion Sleeps Tonight and Suspicious Minds. It was an absolutely epic night which left me trolleyed and grinning from ear to ear. The restaurant was so good we went back the following night for our farewell dinner, but the free Limoncello shots after the meal finished me off I’m afraid, and led to the less-than-educated decision to that night paint half my face blue when we got home. To whoever owns the villa, I’m sorry about your towels and bathroom(s).

These little guys were everywhere at night, so cute!

The drive to back to the airport the day after was very quiet, not through hangovers but just because we were leaving our own little paradise and coming back to reality and work. We stopped off in El Campello for lunch and a last walk in the sun, and as much as I love flying, the flight home was bittersweet. Javea is a beautiful area and I’d thoroughly recommend it (and the villa) to anyone.