Yes, folks, today we did something I, at least, always swore I would NEVER do……we actually went to Benidorm!!! I know, I know, it’s not our scene at all BUT we just succumbed to our curiosity and strolled along the 8km cycle trail into the place. We saw it as an opportunity to walk off the culinary excesses of yesterday whilst checking-out if it really IS as bad as we thought. Believe me, IT IS! Great place for people-watching though! 🙂

One interesting fact we discovered – Benidorm has a resident population of around 69,000 and has more high rise buildings per capita than any other place in The World! Considering it was a small fishing village until the early 1960’s when tourism started to take over, that’s a rather scary statistic! Anyhow, I digress….

It actually has a rather fab looking sandy beach and a small “old town” out on the rocky promontory BUT all this pales into insignificance alongside “Little Britain”…

We had a quick walk along the heaving promenade then found a table on the terrace of a sports bar, aptly named The Jungle and tucked into some rather-too-British food – burger and chips for Roy and a beef baguette served with chips and…..wait for it…..GRAVY (!!!) for me, along with a bucket of beer i.e. 5 bottles of Amstel between us……the whole thing came to €23. Was it worth it? Not for the food BUT, the Cockney middle aged woman at the next table’s utterance to her equally Cockney mates that she “likes it ‘ere cos it ain’t too Spanishey!” kinda made up for it! I tell ya, ya couldn’t script it! 🙂

We mooched around for another half an hour, finding the Hotel “Solana” and “Neptune’s Bar”…….any of you who watch the ITV Series ‘Benidorm” will know exactly what I’m referring to. Those of you who don’t…….check it out on YouTube or someplace because it is absolutely hilarious and pretty much sums up what Benidorm is all about! Cheap and tacky , a bit like Blackpool with sunshine! With that, we headed off on our 8km return journey relieved that we’d done the Benidorm “thang” -albeit it very briefly- but we never need to go back there again EVER!

We both had a huge laugh at the condom machines in both the ladies and the gents loos in The Jungle……. kinda sums up Benidorm…..but if you’re of a nervous disposition, or easily offended, you may want to skip to our next post……