Carmen and the twelve grapes of Alicante

 

I love Alicante, we've been coming here for yonks to see Carmen and her family and we always have a great time. Here's some photos from 20 years ago, 2004.

So for us to sail our boat here, park up staggering distance from all the action and let the new year in with Carmen and her buddies was a real blast. Carmen's mates are such an interesting and diverse bunch of folks. English, Spanish, Argentinean, Welsh, Spanglish, Scottish. She's from Asturius and her Spanish mates are from all over Spain. Such an mad mix. And of course they know how to party.

Then there is the crazy grape thing. At each of the 12 tolls of the bells at midnight on new years eve they eat a grape. 12 in all. These days they have started doing it at midday instead of midnight. Probably so the kids can join in. Anyway all the locals get these tiny grapes but Mandy got us some giant grapes so we couldn't speak for a while as we had a gob full of grapes.

The city was buzzing all day, you couldn't move.

They had the biggest nativity scene I have ever seen, the baby Jesus was massive, Joseph was a giant and the 3 kings could be seen from up at the castle. It won loads of awards but was a little spooky.

Yet again, as I always do in Alicante, I over did things and had to go back the boat for a break in the afternoon while Mandy and Carmen went disco dancing. 

A wild new years eve was finished off with Carmen staying with us on the boat.

A sad side note, a beautiful boat a few boats down from us from Glasgow caught fire at 5am when some fireworks landed on it. The poor owners were distraught, I think I would have cried if it happened to us. The bomberos took only 10 minutes to arrive, great service for 5am on January 1st. Any later and the boat would have sunk.

Walked up to the castle the next day for some fresh air and had another splendid lunch recommended by Carmen.

Visited Carmen's square.

Then it was time to leave and get somewhere calm for Mandy to work for 3 days on our way to Mallorca. Thanks Carmen, great host and great fun as usual. Last thing she did was take us the supermarket in her car so we did a major shop as we didn't have to carry it all back to the boat. We'll be back in a few weeks.