Mountain Walks

Reviewed by: Mountain Walks Spain

Rating:

Our Company, Mountain Walks, is a website where you can find all kind of usefull tips if you are planninig visiting Spain in a different way...

Here below you can find a review of one of our customers who won't forget his journey with Mountains Walk.

La Muntanya d'Alacant

SPAIN was enjoying its siesta. Villagers had bolted their doors, cats dozed on shady window ledges and the birds were silent.

Even mad dogs were fast asleep. But we like true Englishmen and women were out in the blistering midday sun, inching our way up a rocky path in the mountains above Benidorm.

Every few yards we’d stop, take a breather to watch a golden eagle soaring overhead and butterflies fluttering over a carpet of wild flowers. Or we would peer down at the red-tiled roofs of village houses, nestling between the olive groves that clothe the countryside.

This was the stunning Alicante mountains 50 kilometres from the bright lights and crowded beaches of the Costa Blanca but, as the Spanish say, “50 YEARS away”.

Here is a walker’s paradise, with stunning vistas, breathtaking wildlife and enough hills to keep even the fittest hiker in peak condition.

We were on a week’s holiday with Mountain Walks the walking specialists in the hide-away of Quatretondeta, Spain’s answer to the Olivio TV ad.

Unlike Benidorm, an hour’s drive away, the village has only one bar, its shop doesn’t sell souvenir sombreros and there aren’t any tourists snooping around its church.

And forget Club 18-30. Here it’s more like Club 80-130. A staggering two thirds of the village’s population are aged over 80.

They spend their days hanging around on park benches, nattering and watching the world pass by.

What makes the village so fascinating are its characters, like the 91-year-old we met tending his olive groves and almond trees while we were on an early-morning trek.

A chain-smoking 88-year-old chatted to us in Valenciano (his native tongue) on visits to our hotel bar, not seeming to mind we couldn’t understand a word. The Hotel Els Frares, a converted farmhouse owned by ex-pats Brian Fagg and wife Pat, was the perfect base for our trip.

Each morning we would shoehorn our feet into walking boots before inching our way up a rocky mountain path with Brian acting as our guide.

At lunchtime we enjoyed tapas with wine (for under £8 a head) at a village bar or ate sandwiches on a mountain top.

By teatime we would return to our hotel and laze about with a sangria before settling down for dinner in its flowerstrewn patio garden. Though none of us had met before, Brian, a Geordie, quickly broke the ice, keeping the jokes and vino flowing.

Pat spoilt us with mouthwatering local dishes such as chicken with prawns and aniseed sauce, wild boar with garlic and red wine and empanadillas (tuna and tomato pastries).

The hotel caters for walkers throughout the year, except for July and August when it gets too hot. And you don’t need to be an experienced hiker.

There are leisurely strolls such as the one along the rim of the Barranco Encantada , the Enchanted Gorge , where we saw two terrapins floating beneath a waterfall. But if you want a real "brown-trouser" route (as Brian calls it), tackle the Sierra Serrella, 4,459ft above Quatretondeta.

Most Mountain Walks groups make the gruelling scramble up the hillside to visit the hotel’s namesake Els Frares, The Friars , coral rock pinnacles resembling penitent monks.

They also go to snigger at the explicit Bill and Monica rock. I’ll leave it to your imagination.

Reading the visitors’ book at the hotel bar, you realise that people return to Quatretondeta year after year.

And all I can say is "Hasta la vista". I’ll be back.

For more information about our services please visit our website: www.mountainwalks.com.

Category: Adventure Travel