Start from 35 curated places around Alicante, ES, then choose the recommendations that fit your guests.
Restaurants & cafés
Nou Manolín
A legendary Alicante bar and restaurant since 1971, with a street-level tapas counter staffed by white-jacketed chefs slicing jamón and assembling fresh seafood pintxos in front of the crowd. The red prawn of Santa Pola (one of the finest in the Mediterranean) is the house signature, and the bar counter itself — praised by Joël Robuchon as the best in the world — is the experience to seek. The upstairs restaurant is good but the counter is the point.
Monastrell
Alicante's Michelin-starred restaurant by chef María José San Román, with a tasting menu that celebrates Alicante olive oil as a foundational ingredient — one of the few restaurants in the world that treats oil with the same seriousness that other kitchens give wine. The paella and rice dishes here are the most refined in the city and the menu shifts with each season and local harvest.
Trails & outdoors
Castle Hill Loop – Santa Bárbara and Barrio Santa Cruz
A 3km circuit ascending from the Barrio de Santa Cruz through the old medina lanes to the Castillo de Santa Bárbara, circling the castle battlements at the summit and descending via the lift or the northern MARQ path. The route gives both the neighbourhood context and the summit view in a single 90-minute walk. Entirely within the city without requiring transport.
Paseo del Palmeral Coastal Path
A flat paved coastal path extending both east and west from the Explanada de España along the Alicante waterfront, through the beach promenade of Playa del Postiguet and continuing past the marina toward Playa de San Juan. About 10km total from end to end, the route is the city's main daily walking and cycling artery with palm-tree shade for part of its length.
Things to do
Hogueras de San Juan
Alicante's principal festival, held in the last week of June, in which enormous satirical papier-mâché sculptures are erected across the city's neighbourhoods and then ceremonially burned on the night of the 24th. The festival combines the most spectacular bonfires on the peninsula with fireworks, music, parades and the election of a festival queen. The burning of the sculptures (cremà) on the final night is an extraordinary spectacle.
La Noche de los Libros Alicante
An annual late April books and culture festival held outdoors in the Explanada and surrounding streets, with book stalls, readings, music and a midnight book market that brings out the city's literary community. A free cultural event that shows a different side of a city more associated with beach tourism.
Landmarks & sights
Castillo de Santa Bárbara
One of the largest medieval fortresses on the Iberian Peninsula, rising 166 metres above the city on the bare rock of Mount Benacantil. The castle was constructed in phases from the 9th century through the 16th, with each building period visible in the architectural layers — Moorish foundations, medieval keep, Renaissance walls. Free to enter, with a lift from the Esplanada side or a long foot path from the north side, and 360-degree views over the city, the Costa Blanca and the sea.
Barrio de Santa Cruz
The oldest neighbourhood in Alicante, a cascade of whitewashed houses with flower-pot walls and steep staircases climbing the rocky base of Mount Benacantil below the castle. Less famous than the equivalent Barrios in Andalusia, it is more genuinely residential and less curated, with local life persisting in the narrow lanes and a few neighbourhood bars visible on the way up to the castle. An atmospheric 20-minute walk.