When in your VILLAS IN ALICANTE you may well be tempted to wander around the region looking for regalos originales impressive sights, regalos personalizados strange towns or just something of interest.

You may happen to find yourself just standing on a hill with a view a village from a distance and at the top of the hill is a local church. This happens to be surrounded by a plaza filled with bars and restaurants and then, spread out over the hill and flowing down the slopes, are the white washed houses like fallen snowflakes.

It is an impressionable first view of the village that has seemingly not changed for years: Altea.

Sounding like something idyllic almost describes every little village outside of Alicante, but Altea was re-conquered by James 1st in 1244 and the walls that surround the town were quickly constructed to keep outsiders out.

It has almost been closed ever since. The Iberian coastal settlements at the mouth of the Algar River in the wide bay of Altea were later joined by a Greek marketplace named Althaia.

Altea has often been described as a hippy camp. It is a large cultural centre that has over many years attracted many artists here.

Numerous painters and musicians come to join in the international festivals that have often been held here. Few of them have ever considered living in the town; on the other hand, this small tourist resort has an attractive Mediterranean charm. There are some modern facilities but also the town however has preserved its Spanish heritage better than most.

Not far away from Benidorm, an enormously popular tourist destination for its night life where the skyscraper city looms majestically in the distance, you can almost see the night life of Benidorm from the church of Altea.

La Mare de Deu del Consol, the church of Our Lady of Solace, is easily identified by its blue and white domes tiled with glazed ceramics. It is one of the most photographed churches in the Costa Blanca. Below the church and leading to the external walls of the old town are cobbled narrow streets, with the houses around built in a non-uniform way as the Moors had built them many centuries ago.

From various parts of the village as you walk through you could easily catch glimpses of the Mediterranean Sea.

The narrow cobbled streets are off limits to traffic and the steps and steep climb make it impassable to most vehicles anyway. Beyond the walls of the village there is plenty of parking for tourists interested in visiting this quaint village though.

Under the church the beautiful square is filled with numerous bars and cuadros personalizados restaurants, ideally placed after the walk up the hill should you be in need of some light refreshment and time to take in the magnificent views surrounding the village. There are many villages similar to this in the region of your VILLAS IN ALICANTE and it is worth just taking the car out for the day just to see what really is around outside of the big cities.