Surprised by Valencia

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This is the blog entry we wrote a few days ago. Fortunately, we had saved this as a draft email first, and so did not lose this one along with everything else we wrote during the big Travelblog.org meltdown. We are still in the process of finding a better blogging site, but in the meantime, here is the entry on Valencia. Enjoy...

slow boat to Spain

The 9-hour boat ride turned out to be better than we had expected. Instead of the endless frothy waves of seasickness we had expected (which is what we got in Greece), the Palma-Valencia ferry was nice and slow, and very steady. Overpriced salty Spanish sandwiches aside, the trip was actually quite enjoyable, with Sandra and I able to catch som Z's, do a few crosswords, and enjoy the vast expanse of cool Mediterranean blue outside our boat on its top deck.

On top of all of this no sooner than Sandra and I had stepped off the boat onto the pier, that we were greeted with the deafening sounds of fireworks going off right where we were at the port. What a way to welcome tourists to their town, we thought! Of course it turned out that the moment we got off our ferry, Valencia had just won the bid to host the America's cup in 2009, and so there were other causes for celebration besides our arrival.

city with a heart of gold

Since we were only using Valencia as a rest stop before continuing on to Seville, we had expected nothing more than some dingy little port town with a few stray dogs and and some truck stops. I guess I didn't do enough research here.

Valencia, it turned out, was one of the coolest places we've seen in Spain. The people are warm and friendly, but are still a fairly cosmopolitan bunch (it is the 3rd largest city in Spain). The city itself is quite beautiful, to boot.

The old river that ran through the city apparently dried up years ago. So in a fit of ingenuity, the government turned the entire river area into a park. So while the old baroque-looking bridges are still there, instead of spanning water they now span carnivals, well-manicured trees, bike paths, and several small football fields.

Valencia's main university, we discovered, was in the heart of the city, right in the old town. The influx of students, artists, and intelligentsia has made the old town, with its quaint, narrow cobblestone streets and classic antique buildings into a rejuvinated arts and cultural Mecca. We walked the many tiny streets here like we did in Palma, and found that we could not cross more than 2 streets without discovering a little plaza or two filled with the energetic buzz of students and artists discussing something they felt passionate about. Just soaking in the atmosphere here was like a shot of caffeine into our system. We loved it here

Valencia, we are happy to report, is also the original home of the paella, that large plate golden rice topped with seafood and shrimp that we know and love. We found one of the best ones in old town and I would have to say it really was one of the best plates of Paella we've ever had.

I suppose we couldn't write about the one day we spent in Valencia without mentioning Ximo, a nice old German man we met while hunting for Paellas there. Old handlebar-mustachioed, red-faced Ximo spends his days sitting in the foyer of an unpretentious paella canteen, greeting everyone who walks through the door with his comments and food recommendations, whether they want to hear it or not. He doesn't work there, and he's not related to the cook or the owner. He likes hanging out there, and so he does. It turns out he left his native Germany 33 years ago (his real German name was Joachim), adopted a serious hippie lifestyle, and never looked back. We ended up chatting with him over coffee for quite a while.

Our stay in Valencia was short but sweet. I'd put another pin on the map of Spain as another place that we will return to one day, alonside Palma

After this, the 10-hour overnight bus ride to Seville, heart of Andalucia.

Vamos!

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