Dog Walkers in Alicante, Spain

Alicante is one of the driest cities in Europe. Around three hundred litres per square metre fall in a year — less than a third of what the Cantabrian coast receives — and the city comfortably clears three hundred days of sunshine. For anyone living with a dog that means something very concrete: routes are almost never cancelled for weather, but the ground spends much of the year dry, hard and dusty, and paw pads feel it in a way they never do in the north.

The city organises itself into two very different halves. To the south and in the centre, the old town leans against the Benacantil and climbs in short slopes towards Santa Bárbara castle; Monte Tossal and the Parque de La Ereta offer genuine gradient without leaving the urban fabric. To the north, beyond the Albufereta, Playa de San Juan is another world: open street plan, villas, wide avenues and a long seafront promenade where dogs are visible at every hour.

The climate permits what in other cities is unthinkable: a long walk in January in shirtsleeves. Winters are mild and full of light, and from November to April is when the year's serious physical work should be concentrated. Summer, on the other hand, has the usual Mediterranean problem — high humidity that makes August's thirty-three degrees feel heavy — and adds the crowding of the coast.

One detail surprises anyone arriving from inland: the palm grove. Parque El Palmeral, in the south of the municipality, mixes sheets of water, palms and pools of deep shade, and is one of the few places in the city where a summer midday can be spent without suffering.