The most joyful Spanish break

I love a bit of spontaneity. And when it comes to travel, there's nothing more exciting than booking a last minute break. At the end of June, I realised I wasn't actually going on a beachy break this summer and asked Ash one morning if he fancied an extra little trip. This was first thing when we woke up, and by the time we started work at 9am, the flights to Alicante were booked! The only problem with this approach is that we booked the flights without thinking about the accommodation and once we moved onto that task, it seemed a lot harder than expected. I hate high rise hotels with hundreds of other guests. I HATE anywhere with sun lounger races or wars. I hate anywhere that's too British. But I also didn't want anything that felt like a city break; I wanted a beach holiday. It turns out that that's actually quite hard to find on the Costa Blanca in mid July, without spending like a thousand pound. Just when we were starting to lose hope in our options, we discovered La Vila Joiosa.

The name literally translates to 'the joyful town' and the second I saw photos, I knew it was the place for us. Colourful buildings, a 1.5km promenade, a very Spanish feel. The accommodation we found, Paradisun, was just the cherry on top of a very dreamy sounding cake.

Our flights were absolutely perfect and Alicante airport was one of the smoothest I've arrived at, so we were in a Bolt heading to Villajoyosa by 10:30am! Our accommodation was actually an aparthotel so it had the best of both worlds of an apartment and a hotel - the grounds and pool were absolutely beautiful (and massive!). Since we'd arrived so early, we decided to make the most of our day by ditching our luggage and heading straight into town to explore.

We were around a 30 minute walk from town, so our early arrival worked in our favour since it wasn't quite the heat of the day yet. Although it was a solid 30 degrees the whole time we were there and only dropped as low as 26 degrees at night so it's fair to say it was a pretty constant level of balmy! The seafront was just as gorgeous and vibrant as it had looked in photos. It was SO beautiful and it seriously made me wonder why more towns don't paint their houses in rainbow colours.

First things first: a little coffee break to fuel us for the rest of our walk. I ordered a café bombón and it was actual heaven. I love the coffee and condensed milk combo (hence why I love Vietnamese coffee so much). Obviously I couldn't start a trip to Spain without a cheeky glass of tinto de verano on the side at the same time! We'd arrived on a Saturday so the beach was packed with what we assumed to be Spaniards (it was notably quieter on Monday and Tuesday so we think it might be a popular spot for locals to travel to for the weekend). Skipping the beach, we continued along the seafront and headed towards the marina, eyeing up lots of restaurant options as we went. The walk was about 30 minutes from our apartment to the closest edge of town, and then another 20-30 minutes to walk to the furthest point where the marina is, so we were definitely getting our steps in this holiday already!

I feel like Villajoyosa was just the perfect sized town for a weekend break. There were so many lovely restaurant options but not so many that you feel you'll be missing out on the ones you don't have time for. Although we were surprised that a couple said they were fully booked on a Saturday lunch time! In fact, it kept happening throughout the trip to the point that me and Ash started to suspect it was some sort of sales tactic. We did manage to get a table at a beautiful restaurant called El Pósit, and we decided to go all out for our first meal of the holiday and went for the tasting menu. It was a weird and wonderful seafood selection, with some very creative concepts. One course was a tuna ice cream sandwich! A little odd maybe but everything was incredible and the menu rounded off the tasting plates with a big paella to share at the end.

While we were bright eyed and bushy tailed for our walk into town, we were hot and bothered and very full by the time we had to walk back again. I've never been so excited to get back and jump in the pool! By this point, our room was ready and I had perhaps the speediest turnaround ever; I was in the room long enough to snap a couple of photos of it, and then change into a bikini and thats all. It was very worth it to be in the pool and sunbathing next to it as quickly as possible. Our pool was absolutely gorgeous and pretty quiet - the aparthotel was 'adults recommended' so no kids, no families (perfect), and there were only 7 apartments in the complex so even if it was totally full, it still wouldn't be overrun. Me and Ash had a lovely chilled afternoon, and we had a hilarious time filming a 'who knows each other best' dunking challenge we'd seen on Instagram. I don't know what was more difficult - getting me to stay under the water long enough, or getting him to remember the questions!

The England vs Norway game was on that night so we decided to head out early (by our standards) to make sure we had time for a few drinks before settling in for the match. On the walk back earlier, we'd discovered a cool beach bar about halfway between us and town so we started there with the intention to watch the sunset. Although actually, I'm convinced that all the sunset photos I saw on Google reviews had to be lies because the sun sets in the west. The Costa Blanca has an east-facing coastline. So while you do get gorgeous sunsets, you won't get the sun setting below the sea like I thought we might from all the places named 'Sunset spot' on Google maps.

The thing I LOVE about Spain (especially super Spanish Spain - Brits will know what I mean), is how late everything is. As we arrived at the promenade, there were still loads of people on the beach in their swim stuff, and places were only just starting to hot up for dinner despite the fact it was half 9. Having had our big tasting menu in the day, we weren't hungry for a proper dinner so we just bar hopped and had a couple of drinks, and ordered some snacky plates.

Something I didn't expect is that as England supporters, we'd be in the minority of those watching the game! All the bars showing the game were a good 70% Norwegian fans and it seems Villajoyosa is actually a popular place for them to visit since we noticed a few restaurants had Norwegian menus as a 4th language option behind Spanish, English and French. They were all super friendly and we actually got chatting to a few sat near us; it was a friendly rivalry during the game I'd say. There were a lot of good natured Viking rows, followed by a lot of opposing 'it's coming home's. Ultimately it was obviously the 'it's coming home's that won, so our holiday was well and truly off to a good start.

In a move I haven't pulled since the party holidays of my late teens, we ended up accidentally sleeping until lunch time the next day! We obviously needed it though after being up for a straight 24 hours the day before, thanks to our super early flight and the fact that we stayed out celebrating the win with shots. Pure relaxation was something we really wanted from this holiday anyway. We don't book a chilled break very often at all! So Ash headed off on a breakfast mission (we had a big supermarket only 5 minutes walk from us which was perfect) and I got myself set up on a sun lounger. The only time we really moved all day was to go for lunch at the campsite restaurant right next door to us, and that was a mild disaster because the staff were all super rude, and looked at us absolutely baffled when we tried to order a steak baguette (they only sell that in the MORNING you stupid idiot). The pizza was actually decent though so you know, swings and roundabouts.

On day 1, we'd gone for a fancy lunch followed by a casual dinner. After a very casual lunch on this day, we thought it was time for a fancy dinner. We got all dressed up for the occasion and I loved how much of a mermaid I felt in this ombré dress. I even currently have the perfect Ariel-esque hair colour for playing mermaids!

We'd had the place picked out pretty much since we booked our accommodation. Ilpi is an Argentinian steakhouse and the photos online looked SO good; we figured they wouldn't have a 4.8 Google rating without doing something right. After the rudeness at lunchtime, it was so lovely to be welcomed by super friendly staff, and while they didn't have a table for us yet, we agreed we'd grab a drink at the bar next door and they'd shout us over when it was ready. Ash had still been seething about our dunking challenge from the day before because when we first watched it back and he saw me say my favourite drink was a lychee martini, he was adamant that it wasn't. He said he'd never even heard of it, and I'd definitely never ordered one. Yet I order spicy margaritas (his guess) all the time. So to annoy him, I knew just what I was in the mood for. Extra tajin for me please.

We had high hopes for the steak... we were NOT let down. We had a couple of empanadas to start because obviously, when at an Argentinian, and they were fabulous; they felt like they'd been made from scratch. Then it was time for the main event, the star of the show, the steak! Perfectly cooked, served with homemade fries, incredible quality. What more could you want? Honestly what a gorgeous night.

After a day so laid back it was literally horizontal, we were ready to do a bit more exploring again the following day. While we'd taken a long walk along the seafront a couple of times already, we hadn't actually explored the back streets of the town and were keen to see if we were missing out on much. It's not a massive town so we knew it wouldn't be a massive walking day, but me and Ash are both the same in that we like to feel like we've fully explored a place. After a lovely little breakfast at Monte Gastro cafe, we walked through the coloured streets past cute shops, restaurants and ice cream parlours. We finished up with a stroll through Censal park before popping out back at the beach, where we set up for a couple of hours. 

Ash and I both love the sea but actually aren't big on the beach itself so when I say we set up on the beach for a couple of hours, I basically mean we left our stuff on the sand and went in the sea for a couple of hours. We'd originally planned to have a big-kid-runaround on the inflatable obstacle course, until we saw it was actually full of small kids and thought better of it.

When you're by the sea, it's imperitive to have as much seafood as humanly possible. Som de Mar felt like a good option for lunch, and for helping us fulfil that goal! We ordered patatas bravas, calamari and grilled octopus and everything was incredible. I actually loved that we ordered patatas bravas a handful of times and it turned out to be a different style of them every time.

Where did we end up next? You guessed it, back at our gorgeous pool. By this point it was Monday and we noticed we were pretty much the only people at our apartment. So we basically had a private pool for half our holiday! Much better than sun lounger wars at dawn. And I happened to have my own private butler too. The best part about having an apartment was having our own fridge and kitchen, so Ash was regularly popping back and forth to get us wine top-ups. Word of advice; get yourself a man who can't sit still, because you will both be more than happy when he wants to run around getting things for you.

The drinks-at-our-apartment plan bled into the evening, as we decided to make the most of having an apartment with such gorgeous grounds and stayed for the sunset. We did actually have direct beach/sea access from the gardens - it just went straight down to a rocky sea so we didn't use it in the day to go in the water because it looked like a recipe for a slip or fall without sea shoes. It was lovely for me to emerge from our apartment ready for the evening, to see that Ash had created this romantic little set-up with some gorgeous icy rosé. He's a keeper.

We'd had seafood, we'd had steak and we'd had some tapas. The missing piece was the wine bar slash restaurant vibe. It was slimmer pickings for restaurants given that it was a Monday but luckily, Vinos Handeland that I had my eye on, was open. We had tomato salad, we had charcuterie, we had amazing wine. It was the perfect spot and it was nice to mix it up with somewhere down the back streets instead of returning to the seafront again. Another positive about being in the back streets? We were near all the fabulous ice cream parlours... so we naturally finished the night with a little sweet treat.

Our flight home the next day wasn't until 10pm, and we were very happy with the strategic decision we'd made the day before. We'd spoken to the aparthotel owners about a late check-out and they'd said we could stay until 8pm for an extra €50. Obviously we could've just checked out in the morning and then hung by the pool but a) there were no toilets there apart from the ones in the rooms, b) keeping our room meant we wouldn't need to faff with our luggage, c) keeping our room meant keeping access to our kitchen and our fridge, so we'd be able to enjoy poolside drinks again. It sounded like a worthy use of €50 to us! I do feel like the only thing this aparthotel was missing was a bar of some sort because I love a poolside cocktail; Ash was actually loving that it didn't have one though because he said it saved him so much money (the aforementioned love I have of a poolside cocktail isn't a cheap hobby).

Once we'd decided to keep our room for the day, we came up with the idea that we could make our own little picnic to enjoy by the pool at dinner time. Any excuse to go for a wander round a foreign supermarket! With our picnic set for dinner, we had a chilled morning and then went out for lunch at Rico Rico literally just across the road from us. It was a lovely little family-run place and the food was incredible. I think Ash was dreaming of those pork bites for days afterwards.

We enjoyed a few more hours round the pool accompanied by a few homemade agua de Valencia cocktails, before we prepped the picnic we'd been excited about all day. Which we decided to set up on our favourite little seafront platform. Honestly the whole trip felt magical with the way in which it kept feeling like we had things all to ourselves. We don't do this kind of trip very often but it's amazing how long and chilled it can feel with only a 4 day break, and I honestly don't think we could've wished for anything to be better. Our flights were perfect, Villajoyosa was perfect, and our accommodation was perfect. So if you're ever in doubt, book that spontaneous flight. It could just turn into the most magical trip. And if you're as lucky as me, you'll get to enjoy it with the perfect company. Even if he doesn't know what my favourite cocktail is.