Alicante, verdict by verdict

Alicante earns its keep the quiet way: a working Spanish city first and a resort second, where Santa Barbara castle looks down on the palm-tiled Explanada and the whitewashed Santa Cruz quarter climbs the hillside behind it. The package crowds stay up the coast in Benidorm, which leaves the tapas bars around the Central Market and the lanes of the old town to actual Alicantinos, with Postiguet beach at the end of the promenade and the long sand of San Juan a tram ride north.

The trade-offs are straightforward ones. The sight list is compact rather than monumental, so a week here would stretch it thin; August brings serious heat and the year's biggest crowds; and most arrivals still come through the airport, though the AVE now puts Madrid under two and a half hours away by rail. What you get in return is proper Spanish city life with a beach attached, at prices that run well below Barcelona's.

Two days covers it well: castle, old town and Postiguet on the first, San Juan's sand or a boat out to Tabarca island on the second, with mountain-village Guadalest as the inland alternative. It suits travelers who want beach time folded into a real city rather than a resort strip, and it is at its best April to June or in early autumn, when the sea stays warm and the pace relaxes.