Alcoy, Our Holiday (Part 1). The Town, Restaurante Bambú And A Couple Of Local Walking Routes

I think I’ve mentioned previously on this blog that my birthday conveniently falls during the Benissa “fiestas”. A grand coincidence because Pep always has the week off from teaching. Although this year the fiestas were virtually non-existent (due to the pandemic), there was no way Pep was going to deny himself his usual break. Nice to know he’s got his priorities right!

Seeing as we weren’t allowed to leave the Valencian Community, our holiday destination possibilities were narrowed down considerably. We often like to go somewhere that has a bit of life but that’s also close to nature and of course, walking routes.

Pep has often spoken about the Font Roja natural park, saying he would love to go. His dad did the “mili” (obligatory military service for young men that ceased to exist in 2001) close by and used to say it was a very beautiful area. Looking on the map we saw that it was a 20 minute drive away from Alcoy. Also a short distance away from the city is the Sierra Mariola Natural Park, another beautiful area with dozens of trails throughout its mountainous expanse. The drive to Alcoy from Benissa takes around an hour and a half, we needed nothing more to convince us that we had found the perfect place to spend a few days away from home.

On the Sunday prior to my birthday we drove the scenic way there, through Castell de Castells, Famorca, Gorga and the likes. What’s the point of driving along motorways, etc, only to arrive 10 minutes earlier?!?! None whatsoever 😊. Might as well enjoy the countryside as much as poss.

I can count the times I’ve been to Alcoy on one hand, the most recent being a night in 2012 when I was invited to a wedding. Another was in 1999 to a concert of some sort (can’t remember who, an electric bass player I think. Obviously not that memorable). The other outings were when I was a child so as you can imagine, my recollection of the city was vague to say the least. Which was a good thing, I much prefer visiting places I’m not familiar with.

We filled every single moment of our stay touring the city, travelling to nearby villages and venturing on various different walking routes. Hence why I’m going to have to do two posts telling you all about our vacation, there is just far too much to cram into one. This post will be mostly about the town, plus a lovely little restaurant we had the pleasure of eating in and a couple of walking routes that can be started from close to the town centre.

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We got a brilliant deal with my Travel Club points at the Sercotel Ciutat de Alcoi (website here), a 4 star, modern hotel situated in a very convenient area of Alcoy. It has parking in the hotel grounds (for a fee) but we were always lucky enough to find a space on the street outside, something virtually unheard of in the centre of Alcoy.

Right, enough rambling. On to our trip. The first day and a half was spent sightseeing the town. The weather was a bit dodgy so we thought it best to stay away from local mountain walks, there’s nothing worse than getting soaked to the bone when you’re in the middle of nowhere. Armed with our brollies we set out to explore the city centre.

Alcoy is a small city with just under 60.000 inhabitants. It has a wonderful historic quarter, old buildings and cobblestone streets are the norm. As you know, I love wandering through the “casco antiguo” of cities and towns and Alcoy was no exception. There was plenty to see and we did our best to fit in as much as we could in the short amount of time we had.

The city is known as “La ciudad de los puentes” (the city of bridges). There are dozens throughout the town. Alcoy is set amongst rivers and ravines. The abundance of water helped the city to thrive, especially during the industrial revolution. Due to the complex terrain, bridges were needed to join the expanding city.

There is what’s known as the “Vuelta a los puentes” (tour of the bridges), a circular route which takes you on an excursion of many of them. We didn’t do the whole route, hopefully another time, but we did manage to visit a few of them while we were there. Some date back to the XVII and XVIII century. The most recent one was built in 1987.

There are lots more bridges, some we didn’t get to see. One that is on my list for our next visit is the Puente de las Siete Lunas. It is part of the Alcoy “Via Verde” route (I spoke about “Vías Verdes” in my Oropesa post). This particular one is 10 kilometres long and ends close to the Font Roja natural park. It’s another walk on our to-do list for the not too distant future. You can see a picture of the bridge here.

The “Círculo Industrial” (Spanish website here) is also worth visiting. Founded in 1868, it was home to the entrepreneurial society of Alcoy. If I remember rightly the entrance cost 2,50€ each. We were told the money is solely used for the upkeep of the building.

Moving on. Before I tell you about the two walks we did close to Alcoy, I’ll write a few words on one of my favourite subjects, FOOD. We had very good meals on our holiday but there was one restaurant that stood out above the rest (in our opinions of course), Restaurante Bambú (Facebook page here). The reviews were very good so we booked a table (advisable) and arrived extremely hungry after finishing one of the aforementioned walks.

They serve a menú del día for 17€ plus drinks (19€ at the weekend). Of all the restaurants we frequented in Alcoy this was the only one with a vegetarian (not vegan) option on the set menu, which I was most pleased about.

The food was wonderful, beautifully presented and cooked to perfection. Pep chose the roast rack of lamb which was probably not the best choice for him. Not being a big meat eater, when he does occasionally eat it it needs to be well done. The waiter took it back to the kitchen and a few minutes later it returned, just how Pep likes it.

After we had finished our meal the chef (and owner) came out to ask us if everything had been ok, knowing that Pep had sent the lamb back. Although he was speaking in Spanish to us there was no denying that this man was English. I couldn’t quite believe it at first (I suppose the choice of a cheese board on the dessert menu was a bit of a giveaway), this was the first English person I’d heard in Alcoy (and almost the last too). He seemed a lovely guy and said that any problems we have to let him know. I told him that Pep had said it was the best tiramisu he had ever eaten, even though I make them for him. He turned to Pep and humbly said “sorry” (with a slight smile of satisfaction on his face, I might add 😊).

We then realised that the waiter was also English but, like me, has lived in Spain since he was a kid. He told us that the chef had only been in Spain for three and a half years and had opened the restaurant three years ago. The previous two owners had basically destroyed the restaurant’s reputation and Michael (the new owner) had managed to build it back up again. It’s not surprising, the food was divine and the staff were very friendly and helpful. I look forward to returning on our next visit.

The day of our wonderful lunch at Bambú, we enjoyed a couple of local walking routes. The first one was up to the Ermita de Sant Cristòfol and the Alt de les Pedreres. There is a metal cross that sits on the hill next to the Ermita, it could be seen from our hotel room. Obviously this sparked my interest, knowing that there are usually walking routes up to these small chapels. As always, the internet held the answer.

It’s an easy, circular walk. You can make it shorter by just visiting the Ermita or, like we did, include the trail to the Alt de les Pedreres, home to a colony of griffon vultures that make their nests in the cliff walls. Here’s a few pics of the walk which includes some breathtaking views of the valley in which Alcoy sits, also of the cliffs and the Barranc (ravine) del Cint.

That afternoon/evening, following our lunch at Bambú, we followed the walk which takes you through the ravine of the Barranc del Cint, in the Sierra Mariola natural park. It’s part of the GR-7 route, a trail 600 kilometres long which joins Andorra with Tarifa, passing through Cataluña, the Comunidad Valenciana, Murcia and Andalucía. The GR-7 is part of the E4, a European trail measuring 12.000km which unites Cyprus and Tarifa. We didn’t have the time for all that though so we just walked a few kilometres and then retraced our steps back to the car 😁.

We thoroughly enjoyed both of these walks, they’re extremely peaceful and since our holiday was during the week, there was hardly anybody about. Bliss

And that, my dears, concludes the first part of our holiday. My next post will include a very picturesque town close to Alcoy and a few more walking routes that are slightly further afield, but only a little bit. Hopefully shouldn’t be too long before I publish it but we’re incredibly busy with our huerta at the moment. It’s unbelievable how out of hand it gets after 5 days away, mostly due to all the rain we’ve had but also ’cause the weather’s warming up nicely (hooray!!).

It’s been all systems go since we got back, rotavating, weeding, harvesting and planting. Spring is certainly a busy time of year where vegetables are concerned. In fact, I’ve been working so much I’ve given myself tendonitis, all thanks to the “hazada” (hoe). I am now the owner of a nice swollen wrist. I have a cold compress thingy on as I type. Still, gets me out of weeding for a couple of days 😁.

Ok, that’s enough. One more thing though 😂. We still have 8-10 pumpkins left from last year’s harvest (not bad going since there were over 70!). Now the weather’s warming up I’ll soon be making my pumpkin ice cream. The other day I made some vegan, gluten free pumpkin blondies (recipe here) which were rather tasty. To make them a tad more nutritious, I added some chopped walnuts, a small handful of sultanas, about 30-40 grams of chopped 95% dark chocolate and the grated rind of one orange.

Also, I reduced the amount of brown sugar to half (I used coconut sugar) and replaced the 1/4 cup oil with an extra 1/4 cup of pumpkin puree. The vegan butter I replaced with olive oil. And I also substituted the maple syrup with honey ’cause that’s what I had on hand. Apart from that, the recipe is identical to the original 😂. They’re not technically vegan though because I substituted the maple syrup for honey. Eco maple syrup is so blooming expensive here!!

Right, m’off, that’s far too much jabbering for one day. Loads to do. Take care all of you. As always, any questions or suggestions or whatever else you can think of, please get in touch, we’d love to hear from you. I’ll be back on Valley FM with my usual 6 or 7 minutes, today around lunch time. If you’d like to subscribe to this blog (it’s free😁) you can do so in the subscription form at the top and bottom of this page. You can also like our Facebook page to see new posts. Thanks for reading. See you soon. Lots of love, Georgie and Pep xxx