I’M an investment banker from London who has just retired. Upon receiving my last paycheck as well as some other perks aside from my monthly pension of course, I immediately contemplated on spending my vacation somewhere else outside of the country. The first place that snapped on my mind was Spain. It’s because it’s the only country in Europe that I find peculiar and challenging. I’ve heard that the Spaniards are very devout Catholics but have diverse cultures too.

I’m an Anglican myself but I’ve been to Ireland a dozen times and they’re also Catholics there but I’ve herd that the Spanish folks are just different. They celebrate yearly festivals of patron saints which they call as fiestas and there are thousands of patron saints in Spain. There must be a fiesta every day of the year. That’s pretty nice. I’ve also heard that the Spanish people are crazy about their bullfighting. I wanna try that too as there aren’t any here in Britain. People here are more serious, more Westernized, there’s not much native culture left. Everything is generic and monotonous looking. I want to try something new and escape to some beach. And Spain was in my mind.

Upon my arrival in Madrid and after two days and nights of sightseeing, I started looking up in the Internet at my hotel suite on the more exotic side of Spain, not on the other side of the Mediterranean. There’s Ibiza and Tenerife of course which are islands belonging to Spain but I want to spend some time here in the Spanish mainland. There’s one more thing I want to know – do the Basque folks really want independence like they do in Northern Ireland or is just plain propaganda by a few ones? Why can they not be contented with Spain, a very booming country and once upon a time, the most powerful country in the world. I’ll worry about the Basque later. For now, there was one place that I’d like to go that I’ve found on the Internet – Benidorm.

Benidorm hugs the Mediterranean coastline and I’ve heard that all cities situated along the seacoast include fresh seafood in their daily consumption. I’ve heard that the Spanish folks do not love eating frozen seafood, they always want it fresh. So I planned my trip to Benidorm and immerse myself there for a week. Of course, you don’t want to go there empty handed or without any hotel reservation. Benidorm is an international destination and almost all of the hotel rooms from the luxury to the more economical ones are filled if you won’t make a two weeks notice of booking. So basically, I was stuck in Madrid for one more week before I could get to Benidorm.

There isn’t a direct airport in Benidorm, all travelers are diverted to the international airport in Alicante which is a mere 20 minutes away if you travel by car and not counting the occasional traffic halts. Upon arriving at Alicante airport, I hailed myself a cab and traveled all the way to Benidorm to the hotel that I’ve billeted.