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A Spanish City on a Hill

October 19th, 2015 · 1 Comment · Spain, tourism, Travel

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Seems like the older a town is, the more likely it is to have been founded on a hill.

Such is the case for Altea, a city of 25,000 between Valencia and Alicante on Spain’s Costa Blanca.

People have been living here for 2,000 years or more, and eventually they gravitated to the hill near the water, building a church at the summit and walls around their little city, which they white-washed, as did the citizens of other little towns around the Mediterranean Sea.

Which yields to heaping helpings of charm.

And lots of people from chillier climes saying: “We should visit that place.” And in some cases, after visiting, saying: “Why don’t we live here?”

Which is what we are experiencing here this week.

Today, we took a leisurely stroll through the old town, after climbing up the hill.

The massive church, completed in 1901, “replacing the primitive church on the site”, dominates the plaza.

Also at the top of the hill are several higher-end restaurants, a couple of merry tavernas with apartments above, a few streets of narrow apartments and all sorts of wonderful views of the lower town and the sea and the distant towers of the city of Benidorm, down the coast.

Around the church are steep, narrow and cobbled streets with some little hotels and more restaurants and smiling tourists.

Outside the limits of the old walls are less-ancient buildings, all facing the Mediterranean, until the city reaches sea level, where the main road passes through and the street just above, where the commercial district is located.

Nothing is far from anything else, in the center of the city, but to get from Point A to Point B will include some fairly steep climbs — sometimes as steps replace streets — and corresponding descents.

Everyone we have encountered, so far, has been polite, ranging to friendly. Thus far, this has been a town well worth visiting — and perhaps more.

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1 response so far ↓

  • 1 Chris // Oct 21, 2015 at 1:40 PM

    Thank you for bringing us along on your vacations. It may be as close as I ever get to these beautiful places. Have you thought about bringing a video camera and doing it Huell Howser style?

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