Even though travel restrictions are easing I am not yet minded to risk it so I still have no new stories to post so I continue to go through my picture archives and see where I was on this day at any time in the last few travelling years.
In October 1977 I was in Benidorm on the Costa Blanca in Spain. I know that it was October but to be honest I cannot be entirely specific about the date so I have just chosen one at random.
Posted in Beaches, Europe, Food, History, Literature, Natural Environment, Postcards, Spain, Travel, World Heritage
Tagged Alicante, Benidorm, Benidorm in the 1970s, Costa Blanca, Don Juan Benidorm, Freddie Laker, Los Pelicanos, Spain
We could have gone practically anywhere we liked, so long as it was within our restricted budget of course, but we choose to go to Benidorm on the Costa Blanca for two whole weeks and we selected the Don Juan hotel on Calle Gerona, just behind the Levante beach because Linda had been there some time before with her parents and had liked it.
Once in Benidorm we went through the tedious process of dropping people off at their hotels and as the Don Juan was at the far end of the eastern Levante beach we had to wait quite a while to arrive there. Forty years or so later the Don Juan isn’t there anymore and I might be mistaken here but it might now be the refurbished Diplomatic Hotel. It has a bigger swimming pool area and is dwarfed now by giant skyscrapers but it certainly looks similar and it is just about the right location.
The Don Juan was a typical 1970s Spanish seaside resort hotel with a cavernous reception and public area, a dining room that was little more than a school canteen and an entertainment room for evening activity. The hotel was a six storey concrete and chrome building and we had a room on the front about half way to the top with a good view out to sea. In the 1970s rooms could only be described as functional because these were the days before mini-bars, TVs, internet wifi access and complimentary cosmetics in the bathroom but it was nice enough and it was going to be our home for two weeks.
Posted in Beaches, Childhood, Europe, Food, History, Hotels, Spain, Travel
Tagged Alicante, Benidorm, Benidorm in the 1970s, Costa Blanca, Don Juan Benidorm, Freddie Laker, Los Pelicanos
In 1976 I travelled to Europe for the first time to Sorrento in Italy with my dad who obligingly stepped in at the last moment following a bit of romantic trouble when just before departure my girlfriend went off with the head reporter from the local newspaper (Rugby Advertiser).
Very soon after that we patched things up and in October the following year I went to Spain with my (now) fiancée, Linda. We could have gone practically anywhere we liked, so long as it was within our restricted budget of course, but we choose to go to Benidorm on the Costa Blanca for two whole weeks and we selected the Don Juan hotel on the Avenida del Mediterráneo, just behind the Levante beach because Linda had been there some time before with her parents and had liked it.
Thanks to http://www.realbenidorm.net/ for the use of the postcard image
Posted in Europe, History, Hotels, Spain, Travel
Tagged Alicante, Benidorm, Benidorm in the 1970s, Benidorm TV, Costa Blanca, Don Juan Benidorm, Freddie Laker, Los Pelicanos, Ryanair, Spain, Spanish holidays in the 1970s
Have Bag, Will Travel 