Visiting Valencia

Arriving in Valencia, we made our way to the hostel to drop our stuff off. The place was pretty incredible. Each room had a theme and was decorated to fit that theme. I think somebody wanted to have some fun and the hostel provided a good canvas. Our room was a safari theme. The beds had leopard print sheets, there were bug nets hanging from the ceiling, african masks on the walls and the walls were painted a rich earth brown color. Quite fun :-)

After setting in, we went in search of food. The guy at the hostel suggested a place around the corner and man, did it turn out to be a good choice. It was a cidery where they make their own cider and serve tapas. But their tapas was pretty damn incredible. Especially their cured meats. We ended up going there for two of the nights we were in Valencia and in that time, we tried cured wild boar and cured venison. yum. We also had their grilled calamari which was a foot long squid, grilled perfectly and topped with a drissle of good olive oil, balsamic reduction and some parsely. Simple and declicious. We also tried their meatballs, some cheeses and grilled mushroom topped with sea salt. Everything was very good. Their cider, they serve in a fun way. They hold the bottle high above their head and the glass at their toes and then pour. This gives the cider a good head.

In the morning, we started by going to the market. Every town has at least one mega food market with all sorts of goodies. I tried to find Alepo peppers for Catherine, but I don't think they had it. They had no idea what I was talking about. In the end, I ended up with what I think was a mild paprika for using in paella. Not to sure since I haven't tried it :-). I also found some saffron and I got a big cannister of it because it was so cheap. Finally, we picked up some tasty fruit.

After the market, we picked up our train tickets to Granada and then hit some of the tourist sights. First stop was the Cathedral, whose relics include a saint's forearm all shriveld up and the supposed Holy Grail. Here I was thinking that Arthur had it or something, but no, apparently it's in Valencia.

Next stop was lunch. We found a place mentioned in the guidebook that offered a vegetarian menu of the day for under 10 euros. It was a four course tasty menu starting with a soup, then a cold quinoa salad with veggies and mint, then an asparagus custard tart with a side salad. The tart was interesting because it had enough hold, but I wonder if the asparagus was used partially as an emultion tool to lower the amounts of eggs needed. Dessert was a tasty banana custard topped with creme.

After lunch, we went to the botanical garden, which was overrun by ferral cats and painters. They were everywhere. Ok, the painters were art students from the university and doing a good job as far as I could tell. The cats on the other hand were almost a plague. They were so numerous, you felt that if you turned around, one would drop for a tree and surprise you. The garden itself was full of palms and mostly a lot of greenage from tropical climates. Not too many flowers. I did find some amazing rosemary shrubs that had almost a sweetness to them. Not as woody as normal. I was sorely tempted to take a cutting back home. Finally, to end the sightseeing, we went to the fine arts museum.

The next day, was a pretty long day since our train to Granada wasn't leaving until 1am. We started by treking out to the City History Musem which follows the history of Valencia from it's founding as a Roman colony to modern day. It's really a good museum! They tell the story clearly, have lots of english content and move you through time. They even have a series of these videos where actors are pretending to be people from the city at various points in time. For example, there's one where there's a silk merchant complaining about some new taxes. It's a very polished and well done museum.

After that, we took the metro back to the center of town and walked along the old river bed to the new Arts and Science area. The old river bed is a park that used to be the river that flowed by town, but in the 60's, they diverted it because it flooded and they didn't want that happening again. Now it's full of soccer fields (some dirt, some turf), trails, playgrounds, a ball diamond, etc. It was blazing hot in the sun walking around there, but it worked. The Arts and Science place is a new set of buildings designed by some crazy Spannish architect. The same guy who's building the new subway stop at ground zero. They're not done yet, but there's a science center, an art gallery, a gigantic aquarium and a couple of other buildings. They're fantastic pieces of enginerring and are a continuouation of what we'd seen of the rest of the city. Namely a lot of construction. It was everywhere. I couldn't beleive it.

After walking by the Arts and Science center, we kept walking towards the beach. We had lunch at a crappy restaurant that served over priced cafeteria food, and then went on the beech. The water was surprisingly cold, so there was no point in swimming. So we just sat down and read/relaxed for a while. Then, we went to a cafe for some tea and desert and to watch the sunset. After sunset, we explored more along the beach and found this awesome exercise trail. You know how normally those trails are just some wooden beams and bars, well this was like fancy exercise equipment without the computers or resistance and made out of metal like a playground. There was an eliptical machine, one of those gazelles, a hipflexor lift, some arm wheels. Kind of intriguing.

After that, we made our way back to downtown and had dinner at a vegetarian place that served some spectacular salads. I had a seaweed salad that definitely hit the spot. Finally, we hung out at the hostel for a few hours until it was time to go catch the midnight train.