Homeless people

The trip from Maastricht to Alicante in Spain was completely problem-free. After 2 hours of flying time, we got out of the plane a little after midnight to 25 degrees. A pleasant contrast to Maastricht's 9 degrees.

We took a taxi to the hotel in Bonalba which is 20mins drive north of Alicante.

We had been upgraded to a 2-bedroom apartment with a balcony overlooking the Mediterranean, the mountains and a large swimming pool with tropical scenery. The kitchen had long since closed and the late supper consisted of biscuits, chips and chocolate, which we drew from a machine in the hotel's basement. In addition, we drank a good Cava, which was in an ice cooler in our 2-room apartment. When we went down to have breakfast the next morning, we saw a sign that the pool was closed. The friendly girl at the reception explained that it was because it was winter.

what - winter with temperatures between 22 and 28 degrees

Well, but luckily the sign was not to be taken too literally - that was bathed anyway.

no hay problema

We went into the nearest town of San Juan and walked the boardwalk and the town.

Along the beach a large part of shops and restaurants were closed down for the winter… !!

After 3 days we went to Alicante where Emilie had booked a hotel room for us.

Alicante is Spain's 8th largest urban area and, with over 300.000 inhabitants, has all the facilities of a big city. It is believed that the area has been inhabited since 8.000 BC. The recent history includes, among other things, that it was from here that the last republicans were expelled from Spain in March 1939 by the Franco regime.

There is a very beautiful and well-preserved old town, founded by the Phoenicians 325 BC, and tourist traps - also in winter.

We had the room for 3 days and the task of finding a permanent place to stay for the next few months.

During the house hunt, we had the opportunity to walk around the city, check out areas, swim in the Mediterranean and the pool at the hotel and eat in small, cunning places.

On the quay in the harbor stood Pirates of Caribbean and Brazil – 2 of the boats from a Volvo Ocean Race. They belonged to a museum of the prestigious race around the world. The 22th edition of the Volvo Ocean Race will start on 2017 October 18 – also this time from Alicante.

It could be fun to sail to Alicante and experience the start from your own boat.

On homeaway.com we found 4 interesting apartments. When we sent a booking inquiry, we only got a reply from one. Had we misinterpreted how easy it was to find a home? We immediately arranged a time for viewing two days later.

In the meantime, we visited a local real estate agent.

The duty was handed over to Saray – a gorgeous and 15 years younger clone of Gloria from the Netflix series Modern Family. Here things immediately went much better. She had several apartments - all at a reasonable price - and immediately showed one a few minutes' walk away. The apartment was good, but now we had the courage to see what else was on the market.

The next morning we met with Rosario – the landlord of the apartment we had found on HomeAway.com – who had brought his son Jaime as an interpreter. The apartment was nice, but very small. Probably not the place we wanted to spend the next few months. We rented it for 1 week with the possibility of extension. Picked up the luggage at the hotel and moved in.

A few hours later, Jaime called. His mother also had a front row apartment for the beach and marina. It had just become vacant as a result of a cancellation.

- Maybe it was something for us?

A little later, Rosario knocked on the door. She drove us 30 minutes north, showed us the apartment and then drove us along the coastal road back to Alicante.

The next morning we met at 5 p.m. 11 with Saray showing us another apartment.

We now had 4 apartments on hand.

We decided on the first one - a nice apartment of 90m2 in the city center.

I don't think we have ever lived in so many places in such a short time.