Alicante's iconic palm-lined promenade has been the heart of the city's waterfront since 1867, its undulating mosaic of 6.5 million red, cream, and black marble tiles creating the wave pattern that gives the boardwalk its distinctive identity. The 500-meter tree-shaded walk connects the port to Playa del Postiguet, passing terraced cafés, flower stalls, and the bandstand where summer concerts draw locals and visitors every weekend. This is where Alicantinos take their evening paseo, stopping for horchata, ice cream, and conversation beneath the 72 palm trees that have shaded the promenade for over 150 years.

The fortress atop Mount Benacantil rises 166 meters above the Mediterranean, offering panoramic views that span from the port to Playa de San Juan and the Sierra de Aitana beyond. Carthaginians, Romans, Moors, and Castilians each built and rebuilt the defensive position over 2,500 years, leaving layered remnants of towers, cisterns, dungeons, and chapels that tell Alicante's story in stone. The castle is reached via a free elevator tunneled 142 meters through the mountain from Playa del Postiguet, or by the winding road up through the Ereta Park for those who prefer a scenic approach.

Alicante's oldest neighborhood spreads across the steep hillside beneath Santa Bárbara Castle, its whitewashed houses, blue-tiled fountains, and cascading geraniums creating the atmospheric heart of the old city. Narrow stairways climb between terracotta rooftops and iron-wrought balconies where residents have hung colorful flowers for generations. The quarter hosts the Cruces de Mayo festival each May when neighbors decorate street altars with flowers, and comes alive during Hogueras de San Juan in June when locals gather in the small plazas for impromptu concerts and dancing.

The 17th-century Concatedral de San Nicolás rises where a mosque once stood, its austere Herrerian Renaissance facade concealing a gilded baroque interior and a cloistered courtyard with orange trees. A short walk away, the Gothic Basílica de Santa María (1,321 CE) is Alicante's oldest active church, built on the foundations of the main mosque after the Reconquista, its twin towers and rose window dominating Plaza de Santa María. Inside, a 17th-century altarpiece by Juan Bautista Borja and a baroque organ reward visitors who step inside from the sun.

The award-winning MARQ houses over 60,000 catalogued artifacts spanning from the Paleolithic era through medieval Islamic Alicante, earning European Museum of the Year in 2004 for its immersive galleries that recreate the sounds, smells, and atmospheres of past civilizations. The museum's collection includes Iberian sculpture, Roman mosaics from nearby Lucentum, Visigothic jewelry, and Islamic ceramics, organized thematically across rooms representing archaeological methodology and period reconstruction. Three temporary exhibition halls regularly host international collaborations, with recent shows featuring treasures from the British Museum and the Louvre.

The neo-Byzantine Mercado Central, completed in 1921, fills a striking yellow-tiled hall with 292 stalls where Alicantinos shop for fresh fish, Iberian hams, manchego cheese, olives, and Fondillón wines in an atmosphere unchanged for a century. Just outside, Calle San Francisco is lined with whimsical mushroom sculptures that have transformed the pedestrian street into one of Spain's most photographed food destinations, its tapas bars serving anchoas de l'Escala, esgarraet, and the local specialty coca amb tonyina from midday until well past midnight.

Alicante's city beach curves for 700 meters along the waterfront directly below Santa Bárbara Castle, its fine golden sand and gentle waves making it one of Europe's most accessible urban beaches. Blue Flag certified for water quality, the beach is walking distance from the old town and connected by the waterfront promenade to both the port and the tram line that continues north to the longer beaches of San Juan and El Campello. Lifeguards, showers, and chiringuito beach bars operate from April through October.

Alicante's port transformed from a commercial harbor into a Mediterranean yacht destination after hosting the Volvo Ocean Race start in 2008, its modern marina now lined with sailing superyachts, waterfront restaurants, and the iconic Panoramis entertainment complex. The port area connects to the Explanada via the palm-lined Paseo del Puerto, where locals pass evenings watching ferries departing for Tabarca Island and cruise ships calling from across the Mediterranean. The Volvo Ocean Race Museum documents the sport's history with interactive exhibits and archive footage from nine editions.

Spain's smallest inhabited island sits 22 kilometers southeast of Alicante, reached by a 45-minute ferry journey to a walled 18th-century fishing village that Carlos III built to protect liberated Genoese slaves from Barbary pirates. The island's crystalline waters became Spain's first marine reserve in 1986, making it a snorkeling destination where protected species thrive among seagrass meadows visible from the surface. The medieval stone walls, baroque church, and lighthouse can all be visited on a 90-minute walking loop, while caldero de Tabarca, the island's signature fish and rice dish, is best enjoyed at one of the harbor-side terraces.

The UNESCO-listed Palmeral of Elche is Europe's largest palm forest, containing over 200,000 date palms descended from trees planted by Phoenicians and Moors between the 7th and 10th centuries when the region was Islamic al-Andalus. The city of Elche lies 25 minutes southwest of Alicante and can be visited as a half-day trip, with the Huerto del Cura botanical garden and the Museo del Palmeral explaining the sophisticated irrigation system that has sustained the grove for over 1,200 years. Palm fronds harvested here supply Spain's Palm Sunday processions nationwide.