Valencia - Spain

We both loved Rome, but we had definately stayed long enough. It did mean we had a few days of relaxing and taking it a bit easier though. The flight to Valencia in Spain was ok, but im glad we have been on the train most of the time. Transport to the airport, then the 2 hours of waiting and the lines, were a bit of an ordeal!

We arrived at the hostel in Valencia at about 5pm, just long enough to drop our bags, look around and head out on a free city tour. This was led by 'Johnny English', an english guy obviously, who was a really good guide. He gav us a lot of commentaries and history and we saw a number of the main sights around Valencia. It is a really great city, nice and green, lots of fountains, we only have 2 nights here but could have stayed longer.

Saturday morning we headed out for breakfast, as we ddn´t have any and its not provided by the hostel. After walking through the mercado, we found a nice little cafe and ordered 'cafe y leche' (coffee) and a pinchio tortilla. This was really nice, a bit oily, but like a potato quiche. After eating I tried asking, en espanol, what ingredients were in the food, the old guy was more than happy to explain, en espanol, and was so excited by my interest, that he insisted on a high five as I left. Very cool!
As we really only had one day in Valancia, the rest of the day was pretty busy. First stop was some shopping in the Mercado, ingredients for dinner. We dropped them back at the hostel before going to the Museo de Ceramica, a ceramics museum, Valencia is well known for its ceramics apparently. This was interesting as it was in a nice old home, of a really rich guy, it even had a rotating Virgin Mary statue above the front door, which would face inside when the family was home and outside if they were out.

We then walked along the river bed, which is now a beautiful green park. Years ago there was too many floods, so the city diverted the river around the town. The government had plans for a freeway in its place, but the locals protested by planting thousands of trees, its been a park ever since. It also has nice water fountains through it. This park led us to the modern area of town which has some amazing buildings, all with large blue pools around them.
We also checked out the F1 track which was being packed up after the race a week earlier, and the mariner, before having a rest and swim at the beach. Our planning has been a bit crap unfortunately, if we were a week earlier we could have seen the Grand Prix and Tomatina, the festival where truckloads of tomatoes are driven into a nearby town for a massive food fight.

Our last stop was at the L'Almoina, which we had booked earlier. It is basically an underground walking tour of the ruins of the towns of years ago. It was kind of cool, although the tour guide only spoke spanish, so we didn´t catch everything (much) he said. Damien then headed to the train station to book seats on the train the following day, only to find out it was fully booked already. We will have to take a night train to Granada instead.
With our extra day we took it quite easy, wondered aroung the bull ring and some tourist market. Coffee in the trendy parts of town. We had a siesta at the hostel, and a big spanish dinner, paella, tapas and sangria before catching a 1am train to Granada.