Well, I've just had a marvellously relaxing weekend, lying on the beach in Alicante. Tracey and I ate great food and thoroughly enjoyed the warmer weather and getting sand in between our toes again! Our easyjet flight was departing at 6am on Saturday morning so due to lack of public transport at that time of morning, we headed out to Luton airport the night before, determined to get a few hours sleep at the airport. To our dismay, we found that the seats were uncomfortable, the arm rests didn't lift up and about every 15 minutes there was the same announcement about Luton being a non smoking place. So we spent a long five hours, trying to get comfortable and trying to get some kind of sleep before we could check in and be on our way. I think by the time we were boarding the plane, I'd had about half an hour or so in 3 minute intervals! So we were shattered. So shattered that I fell asleep half way through the safety demonstration and didn't even wake up for take off! We arrived in Allicante at 9:30am, to weather already much warmer than any we'd seen in London for months! I might add that a few days before our trip, London received snow for the first time that winter, so we were very excited to get warm temperatures. We arrived at our hotel, had a shower and then immediately headed down to the beach, about 50 meters away. After a lovely walk up the beach, we decided to get some lunch and chose a café overlooking the beach. Unfortunately, no one in the café spoke English, there were only a few pictures of food, and we couldn't decipher the menu! Taking pot luck, we managed by fluke to order calamari and a tuna salad. It was nice, and I'm sure we thoroughly amused the owners. We returned to the beach and spent the next few hours lying there, soaking up the sun and just generally relaxing. After an afternoon nap, we decided to get some dinner, deciding this time that we were going to find a place with a picture menu, and paella. We found one with both, but found out when we were ordering that paella wasn't being served at the time so we ended up having lovely fish, calamari and Spanish ham (and don't get Tracey started on the Spanish ham!). Returning to our room, we decided to forgo going out and crashed, deciding that we'd make the most of the next day that way. Woke on Sunday morning feeling refreshed and departed from the hotel, lugging around our small backpacks and winter jackets. By the time we were boarding the local bus to take us into Alicante itself, it was 23 degrees, so we got off the bus in town and headed straight across the road to the beach again. After another few hours here, we decided this time we had to have paella for lunch (when in Spain, it's a must) so we found a lovely place overlooking the water, once again with a picture menu and ordered ourselves some paella. Of course, the food was fantastic. Feeling really relaxed, we decided to head back to the beach for another couple of hours, enjoying the last of the sun. We then headed up to the Santa Barbara Castle for views over Alicante. There we both came to the realisation that Alicante was actually an ugly city with not much going for it, except for the beach. A wander up the esplanade and by the docks followed before it was time to find the bus stop and get out to the airport for our flight home. Unfortunately our lovely relaxing weekend ended on a sour note as our plane was delayed so long that we were leaving Alicante at the time we were meant to have arrived back in London. So we didn't touch down at Luton airport until nearly 2am and then had all sorts of fun getting back to south London from there. I crawled, exhausted, into bed at 3:45am, and woke about 4 hours later to head into work! Despite the delays getting home, I had a fabulous weekend, desperately needing to get out of London and get some sunshine. The funny thing is that Alicante, isn't really a great city, and truthfully, if I'd recently been to the Greek Islands or the French Riviera or the Gold Coast, the beaches wouldn't have been that attractive either. But not having been on one for so many months, it felt marvellous. And I thoroughly enjoyed a weekend away, doing nothing, and not feeling the need to be a tourist. Just wonderful.