Altea old town and the blue-tiled dome

Altea is the Costa Blanca's postcard: white houses, blue doors, narrow stepped streets and, at the top, the church of Nuestra Señora del Consuelo with its ceramic domes in blue and white above the rooftops. From the square in front of it the view runs over the tiled roofs to the sea and, on a clear day, the Peñón de Ifach at Calpe.

The lanes below the square are the better material: whitewash bounces light into faces, the bougainvillea gives colour, and the gradients mean you can shoot up or down a street and get a whole village behind two people. Cars stay out of most of it.

Go in the morning to have the streets to yourselves, or late, when the white turns warm and the domes hold the last light. Altea is roughly forty minutes from Alicante by car and is normally combined with Calpe in one session.