Costa Blanca (Valencian Community)
El Barrio (old town) and the Explanada
Whitewashed lanes and tiled steps climbing below the castle, ending at the palm-lined Explanada de España — free to wander, and best done slowly.
Where
Alicante, Spain
Opening hours
Open access (always open). The streets and the Explanada are public space you can walk any time; individual bars, restaurants and the promenade market keep their own hours, liveliest in the evenings.
Tickets
Free — no ticket needed; open public streets and a seafront promenade you can wander whenever you like. You only pay for food, drink or anything you buy from the Explanada stalls.
Time needed
Half a day: an hour or two for the old-town lanes, plus an evening stroll along the Explanada and dinner in El Barrio.
In short
Visiting El Barrio (old town) and the Explanada
El Barrio is Alicante's old town: whitewashed lanes, tiled steps and blue doors climbing the hill below Santa Bárbara Castle, full of tapas bars by night. It runs down to the Explanada de España, the palm-lined promenade paved with a wave of red, cream and black marble. Both are free to wander. Do it slowly across a morning and an evening — the lanes for daytime quiet and the bars after dark, the Explanada for an evening stroll. Half a day covers it comfortably.
Wandering the lanes and the promenade
There’s nothing to book and nothing to pay: El Barrio and the Explanada de España are open public space you can walk into whenever you like. El Barrio is Alicante’s old town — a tangle of whitewashed lanes, tiled steps and blue-painted doors climbing the hill below Santa Bárbara Castle, strung with potted plants and washing lines. By day it’s quiet and photogenic; after dark it flips into the city’s busiest nightlife quarter, the narrow streets lined with tapas bars and crowded with tables.
Downhill, the lanes feed out to the Explanada de España, the seafront promenade paved with a famous undulating mosaic — millions of small red, cream and black marble tiles laid in a wave pattern, shaded by a double row of palms. In the evenings craft stalls and buskers set up along it, and it becomes the natural place for the Spanish paseo, the slow pre-dinner stroll.
Do it slowly, twice
The mistake is to rush this in one pass. It rewards being split across a morning and an evening: walk the old-town lanes early, when they’re cool, shaded and empty enough to photograph, then return after dark for the tapas and the lit-up squares, finishing with a wander along the Explanada. Reckon on half a day all in.
Is it worth it? For a free attraction, yes — this is the most characterful part of Alicante and the place the city actually lives, rather than a manufactured sight. Be realistic about what it is: El Barrio is genuinely lovely but also genuinely loud at night, so it’s atmosphere rather than tranquillity, and the Explanada is a working promenade, busy and a little touristy. The neat trick is to chain it onto the castle — ride the lift up Santa Bárbara, walk down through El Barrio, and let the descent end at the sea.
Planning the rest of your trip? See the Alicante city guide.
