In the Alleys of Alicante - Alicante, Spain

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El Barrio, the old quarter, is the heart of Alicante. Its pulse is rather unstable, hardly perceptible in periods of rest, rising to ecstatic heights on hot summer nights when a young party crowd drives the heartbeat up.

El Barrio Antiguo

In spite of an aging heart, Alicante is a vibrant city with nearly 300,000 inhabitants, a furthermore provincial capital and a gateway to eastern Spain. It receives hordes of tourists, the majority of them immediately distributed to the holiday resorts of Costa Blanca, such as Benidorm. Another crucial factor in the economy of Alicante is its huge port, once the port of Madrid.

Locating El Barrio is easy. Viewed from the harbor, it stretches away behind the City Hall, Ayuntamiento, a Baroque marvel, up towards the Benacantil mountain crowned with the imposing Santa Barbara Castle, and terminated to the left by La Rambla Mendez Nunez. Seeing the majestic harbor promenade with its wave-like marble mosaic, Explanada de Espana, then it's a bit surprising that young people prefer the narrow alleys of El Barrio where the breeze is a rare guest.

Day versus Night
At this stage, in the middle of May, El Barrio is undergoing an all-embracing heart surgery. All its veins and arteries seem to have been dug up to get new tubes and cables implanted, an operation to be finished off with a surface suitable for unsteady legs. The workmen are quite safe, thanks to their gaudy yellow uniforms and the fact that intruding cars get helplessly stuck. The surgery has a special deadline; St. John's Bonfires at the end of June.

Flowering Decay

El Barrio is a patchwork of contrasts: disorder and perfection; ugliness and beauty; dust and flowers; noise and intimacy. In the daytime, it's a collection of facades where you can study decay and colorful neatness side by side, accompanied by the sounds of digging, drilling and lifting machines. Some houses have a large hole in their ground floor wall, caused by enterprising people who found yet another place they could convert into a bar. The many closed bar entrances contribute to the ugliness.

The very same entrances revive in the evening, lighted up in neon, many providing chairs and tables outside, and enticing music to attract a crowd: in some places live music, a few even specializing in jazz. The surrounding darkness settles like a veil over things, and people's attention is focused on each other and the music. This early in the season, the crowd is mainly dominated by locals, many of them beyond their first youth, and they all display the same going-out pattern: late Friday and Saturday night dating.

Cafe Epoca is situated on the outskirts of El Barrio near La Rambla. The waiter, a young man wearing glasses, has been bored the past few nights, but he's really in his element tongiht. A chill in the air drives people to seek tables and chairs inside, which is next to impossible. The eager waiter encourages them to stay anyway and compensates with a speedy service. Despite the crowd and the noise, every couple and group manage to create their own sphere of congenial intimacy.

From Above
To get an overall view of El Barrio it's necessary to move upwards, preferably on foot all the way up to the Santa Barbara Castle on the mountain top; starting for example from the old city's central alley, Calle Mayor behind the City Hall. The almost vertical rock high above looks a bit scary; sand-colored, but it's hopefully made of stronger material. The path, winding through the Ereta Park, is solid enough, being paved with pebbles and boasting a marble edging.

Jets of fountain water inspire a young guy and his dog to a moment of thoughtfulness. The dog does its best to copy his master's pensive expression. They have no eye for El Barrio, gradually revealing itself down below. The upper part, Santa Cruz, stands out with whitewashed houses and a profusion of flowers. The lower end is dominated by the roofs of St. Mary's Church, the City Hall and the Cathedral of St. Nicholas. The rest is charming disorder.

Santa Barbara, among the largest medieval fortresses in Europe, is made up of several levels, planted with pines, cacti, palms and cypresses, and in the well-kept buildings you can delight in contemporary sculpture or the exhibition New Bronze Age. School children are dashing around the outdoor cafe. One of their teachers, a middle-aged lady in a grey sweater and green bermudas, is doing her midday gymnastics. Supported by a tree, she stretches and swings her limbs. Regardless of how lithe she gets, though, her grim face refuses to relax.

Fortress seen from Santa Cruz

The views are panoramic, with the skyscraper of Hotel Tryp Gran Sol as a useful landmark, down at the junction of La Rambla and the Explanada promenade. In the seaward corner of the castle, you literally hang in the air over the famous Postiguet Beach. The port stretches away southwards, and the skyline of Albufereta dominates in the north east. Motorways lead to the inland's farming areas and mountains. El Barrio is partly hidden from the highest point, whereas a bullring is clearly visible.

Police Performance
Calle Mayor is a practical way out of El Barrio. It joins La Rambla right where Cafe Cerveceria Ramblas is situated opposite, an oasis amidst office buildings. Croissants are lined up on the desk, while the traditional ham, jamon serrano, is sweating on its special rack. Fading photos depict street life in the good old days, also showing the cafe with two small gum trees in front of it, which have in the course of time grown so immense that enormous cranes are needed to prune them.

Through the cafe windows, today's street life unfolds, an amusing part of which is El Guardia, a local policeman tearing around on his white motorbike to break up traffic jams, some of them created by workmen busy hanging up decorations in honor of St. John. El Guardia is around 35, rather short with a clean-shaven head under his peaked cap and is wearing a light summer uniform in greyish blue; plus black boots of course. Getting off his bike, he turns into a true performer.

Sporting sleeves rolled half-way up, just enough to reveal his golden bracelet, he directs the traffic with measured movements and fiery blows on his whistle. Smart sunglasses alternately adorn his nose and shirt opening. When his hands are not directing, they take a break parked by his sides or hang loosely down. Brave, self-satisfied, constantly in mortal danger and yet performing fearlessly - he could be a matador, now perhaps training for the upcoming bullfighting festival, actually coinciding with the celebrations of St. John the Baptist, who will in a few weeks time take over the streets and alleys of Alicante.

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