Saturday we decided to take in a gourmet walking tour in Alicante. The tour started along the waterfront at the Explanada. We met our tour guide and two other couples there at 11 am. Our tour guide was very informative and pleasant. He told us about  the history of Alicante as we walked along to the restaurants through the old part of the city. Our first stop was a small restaurant on the main walkway. They served us “Horchata” which is a sweet drink that is made from the little beads (called tiger nuts) that form on a long string type root of the chufa plant. The drink was white (similar to milk in colour) it had a very unique and almond sweet taste. It is very popular with locals here.

We then walked through the old part of the city. We went through some smaller streets to some really neat and interesting spots.

We eventually stopped at “La Chinata” an olive oil store. This was an amazing spot, with all sorts of different olive oils and other olive products. We had a tasting of five or six different types of olive oils, using fresh-baked bread. Shelley was enjoying the olive oil tasting and sampled each olive oil a few times. We are planning to come back to this store once we move into our new apartment and stock up on different olive oils.

Our tour guide gave us some history of the olive oil industry and that Spain is the largest producer of Olive oil in the world.

We then  walked to the local market. There are two floors of the market the top floor has all meats and the bottom floor has bakeries and vegetables. We sampled some fresh fruits and vegetables. The vegetables are all produced locally and are very fresh. We then sampled some blood sausage. yuke!!! not for me.

We then went to a small fish shop where we sampled some salted fish. We tried them but I can guarantee I won’t be back to buy any.

There was also “Bonito” a small dried tuna fish. This dried tuna is kept hanging in the kitchen and small pieces of the meat is peeled off when  needed for salads etc.  This one fish apparently can last for months in a kitchen.

After we finished the market area we walked back into the old part of the city and ended our tour by sampling some wine. Now this was a nice way to finish the tour. We sampled some local wine and had an assortment of cheese and crackers. It was quite nice and the wine was of course very tasty. In fact we ended up staying there after the tour with two other people from the tour and enjoyed a few more glasses of wine.

Overall it was very enjoyable and we saw some traditional shops and  sampled some of the gourmet foods made locally in Alicante.

“Adios y que tenga un grand dias”