Alicante Romance: Catamaran, Cava, Tabarca
Time it right and you get Mount Benacantil turning gold over one shoulder while the bay turns pink over the other, with a glass of cava in hand and nowhere to be for the next two hours.
A sunset on the water
That is the sunset catamaran cruise along Alicante Bay, roughly two hours out of Muelle de Levante, tracing the cliffs below Castillo de Santa Bárbara while chilled cava and fresh fruit go around. Figure €32 to €36 per person through Alicante Catamaran, or browse sunset sailing tours and book ahead in summer, since the best sailings fill by mid-afternoon on clear evenings.
Dinner with the whole city under you
Restaurante La Ereta sits on the pine-covered lower slope of Mount Benacantil, inside Parque de la Ereta, with the tiled roofs of Santa Cruz and the bay spread out below the terrace. The tasting menus run €75 to €95 per person and change with the season, built around Valencian ingredients rather than a fixed script. Reserve well ahead directly through laereta.es ; this is the kind of table that gets planned around, not walked into.
After dark in Santa Cruz
By early evening, the day-trip crowds thin out of the whitewashed lanes of Barrio de Santa Cruz, and the neighborhood shifts into something quieter: small wine bars pouring Alicante DOP Monastrell reds, Tarima Hill and Enrique Mendoza among the names worth asking for, alongside plates of cured Iberian charcuterie. The lanes are steep and the paving uneven, so low-heeled shoes serve better than anything else for wandering them after dark.
A night on Tabarca, once the boats stop
The last catamaran back from Isla de Tabarca leaves at 18:30, and once it goes, the island empties. What is left is a walled 18th-century village, deserted pebble beaches, and a sky with none of the light pollution of the mainland. A room at a boutique property like Hotel Boutique Isla de Tabarca, set inside the old Governor’s House, turns a day trip into the most complete escape this coast offers; book the crossing through Cruceros Kontiki and check rates on Booking.com well before the summer season fills up.
None of this needs a rental car or an early alarm, only good timing: the sunset sail before dinner, dinner before the wine bars, and Tabarca saved for a night when you can afford to stay over rather than rush the last ferry home. Alicante Turismo lists current festival dates worth avoiding if you want the quiet version of Santa Cruz. For the practical side of getting to the island and back on a normal day trip, see the day trips guide .