The Benissa to Alcalalí Walking Route With A Visit To “Tigre”, The New Belgian Bakery

I always look forward to the weekends, whatever plans we have in mind. Whether we’re busy in our “huerta”, walking up mountains or creating different concoctions in the kitchen, the “fin de semana” is our time to unwind and switch off, whilst doing something we thoroughly enjoy.

For Sunday I had a cunning plan, one that involved a wee surprise for Pep. The idea came to me during the week, when I’d met my mum at the Bernia vet in Jalón (mum’s cats have all had the dreaded lurgy lately). I noticed a new shop had opened right next door to our local vet. On closer inspection I discovered that it was “Tigre”, a Belgian bakery and cake shop (Facebook page here). I’d seen their new Facebook page a couple of weeks previous but had all but forgotten about it. Honestly!!

Mum, who is more into cakes than I am (and that’s saying something) looked at me, and sounding like I would have done when I was a child asking her, said “Can we go in?”. What a silly question!!

It was almost closing time and most of the produce had been sold. Some of the cakes that remained looked identical to the cakes in the Café Wien in Jávea. There were also various different types of bread. We started chatting to the owner who told us that, although they make a lot of their own cakes and pastries, they also work with the Café Wien and sell some of their produce too.

This is when the idea for our Sunday walk suddenly lit up in my brain. We could prepare a picnic, walk from our house to Jalón, buy a cake in “Tigre” and find somewhere amongst a load of trees to have our lunch. I wouldn’t tell Pep about the cake part, leaving that as a surprise. He’s also more cake mad than I am, especially if chocolate’s involved.

Sunday arrived, and with it the horrid wind. Again. Marvellous. Not quite as bad as in my last post, but still enough to discourage us from walking o’er mountains. But I wouldn’t let it dissuade me. Pep was more than happy to stay home but he didn’t know at this point that we would be visiting a rather lovely new cake shop.

I insisted we must stick to our initial plan and he begrudgingly tagged along. Poor devil. I think he thought I was quite bonkers. Here are a few hundred photos (sorry about that) of the route to Jalón (with info), starting from Benissa town.

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Instead of taking the route which runs by the riverbed between Llíber and Jalón, we continued through the Pla to make sure we’d arrive at the bakery before they closed. We arrived at 13:15ish. Plenty of time to spare as they shut at 2pm on Saturdays and Sundays. Four people were waiting outside, they only allow two people in at a time. Pep realised what type of shop it is and was pleased I’d insisted on coming. I knew he’d see reason eventually.

I gazed through the shopwindow to see what was left. Shock horror!!! The shelves were bare. Apart from a few delicious looking loaves of bread, three butter croissants and a couple of different pastries, the glass cabinets were empty!!! Oh bu***r, Pep was going to kill me.

Still, we waited our turn and bought the only Frangipane pastry/cake that remained unsold. The owner said that that morning there had been a long queue down the road and, although they were well stocked up with cakes when they opened at 8am, five hours later they had all vanished.

I told her I would be mentioning their shop in this post and she promised to send me some photos of all the cakes when they opened on Tuesday (they close Mondays). Here they are, looking ravishing.

We continued our walk towards Alcalalí. The route runs through the length of Jalón, then continues by the riverbed. Hunger got the better of us and we stopped for our lunch. Thankfully we found the only secluded spot between Benissa and Alcalalí to have our picnic. Our view was a load of canes but we were quite happy. As long as it wasn’t windy, we didn’t care where we sat!

If the days weren’t so short at the moment, we would have carried on to Alcalalí and possibly Parcent. But time was getting on and we had quite a long, uphill walk back home. Thankfully it wasn’t quite as blowy and we could enjoy the walk through the “Pla” and the gradual climb from Llíber to Senija.

The route is rather beautiful, well marked and signposted and very recommendable this time of year, now the almond blossom will soon be in full glory. Although in Benissa the almonds were in bloom when we ventured on this walk, the Alcalalí trees weren’t quite ready to burst into flower. It must be something to do with the cooler temperatures at night in the Vall De Pop.

When we arrived home I felt my legs were going to fall off. My phone informed me that we had walked 20 kilometres, taken 27.500 steps and climbed 41 flights of stairs (I’m not sure how it works that one out, but still). We had done this walk a couple of times previous and I don’t remember it being so long. Or maybe I’m just getting old.

Whatever the case, I needed to revive my poor old feet. I receive emails from various different health and lifestyle blogs with all sorts of wonderful tips and recipes. Two days previous to our walk I had received one with a “recipe” (link here) for a warming foot soak. What better time to try it than now.

Down comes the electric foot bath which sits in a large carrier bag on top of my kitchen cupboards. Isn’t that where everyone keeps it?!?! I leave it up there to remind me to use it. I rarely do though but I have made a New Year’s resolution to stick my feet in it more often!! You don’t necessarily need a foot bath for this by the way, a big bowl will suffice.

The ingredients you need are dried ginger powder and a couple of sprigs of rosemary. I added to this some magnesium chloride flakes which I always have on hand to make magnesium oil. It’s excellent for tired and achy muscles, it improves circulation and also helps to get a good night’s sleep.

Put the ingredients into the foot bath or bowl, pour on boiling water and allow to “brew” for 5 to 10 minutes. It was still pretty hot so I poured on some cold water and then proceeded to soak my feet for 15 minutes or so. Fabulous.

When I had finished soaking, I noticed a tingly, spicy sensation, as if I’d eaten a vindaloo through my feet (obviously due to the ginger). A very odd sensation, but surprisingly quite nice and very warming. Excellent if you have cold feet. After 15 minutes or so it wore off. A quick massage with lavender salve (which I made in this post) and my lower limbs had returned to their normal old selves.

Right, I’ll be off in a mo. One more thing before I disappear though (as usual). Last week Pep and I went for a walk around the Partida Canor (a part of Benissa). We sat down for a little rest on a couple of rocks. After a few minutes we started to head back home. I looked down at my legs and noticed three processionary caterpillars walking up my tracksuit bottoms. Pep quickly knocked them off with a twig, checked there were no more and we continued walking.

Then I looked at Pep’s feet and I saw one climbing up his sock, just about to go under his trouser leg. It doesn’t bare thinking about!! We quickly removed it, also with a twig, and zoomed home to shower. Even though the caterpillars didn’t touch my skin, I still came out in an itchy rash on my ankle. Awful things.

I’m sure that those of you who live around here are aware of the dreadful pine processionary caterpillars but it doesn’t hurt to remind you all to be very careful at this time of year. Especially if you have pets, they can be deadly.

I really don’t know the best way to deal with these insects. When I lived in Orbeta I would find some in my garden every year. I didn’t have pines but my next door neighbour did. I used to grab a tall dustpan and brush, scoop them into a large carrier bag, tie a knot, put them in another bag and chuck them in one of the wheelie bins. Always wearing rubber gloves while doing this. Even then, my skin would start itching. Whichever way you choose to get rid of them, be extra careful.

Ok, on that jolly note I shall bid you toodaloo until next time. I’ll be back on Valley FM this Saturday lunchtime. Here’s last week’s spot if you fancy a listen. I’m on around minute 34 although it’s worth listening to the whole programme as there is lots of interesting info.

Thanks for reading. If you have any questions or suggestions please feel free to get in touch, either in the comment section below, on our contact form at the top and bottom of this page or by messenger on our Facebook page here. We’d love to hear from you. See you soon with more tales from our little life here in the Marina Alta. Take care. Lots of love, Georgie and Pep xxx