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Published: August 8th 2007
The Cup!
So close you could touch it...(Leroy)
Finding our hotel was fun!!! It was in a little back street that was impossible to find by car and we spent about 45 mins driving around a 500m radius trying to find the bugger. So we ditched the car in a secure park and went on foot. Did I mention it was 10.30pm on a friday night and the place was going crazy with pommy stag nights and normal Spainish just doing their thing (aka eating and drinking in plazas). Katey was calm through the whole ordeal and was a gem, if it was me I would have cracked the sh&ts very early on.
We only had 1 full day in Valencia and as Katey's a yachty at heart we spent the day at the America's Cup port. The Port was huge, I was expecting something the size of the pit lane at Albert Park for the F1 grand prix. I guess it was that times 100.
We got to cruise through the history museum of the Cup and Australia is a pretty big part of that which is cool. We got to get within a whisker to the trophy iteself which was impressive but it was
chaos trying to get photos.
Biggest bummer was that the race scheduled for that afternoon was cancelled due to lack of wind so we saved our selves 120 euros there. The race was part of the Louis Vuitton series, not the actual America's Cup competition itself. The LV series is like a warm up series for the competitors, although the Cup defender doesn't participate.
The whole set up was really well done and catered to all ages and all scales of disposable income. We stuck to the low end of things. As you could imagine with a huge sporting event there were some extortionists there in the shape of restaurants and bars.
We got to see all the boats come in from the course, but it was a pretty disappointing not to see an Aussie boat
and even worse to see a NZ boat instead.
On the way back we passed the "modern muesum district" where the buildings are all hi tech and look pretty cool. And then it was back to the main plaza for some more tapas, wine and people watching.
Cruising back to the hotel at about 11pm we heard all this
comotion happening so we went for a sticky beak to see what's up. We came across this little sqaure with traditional dance and music playing. Thought it was pretty bizarre considering how late it was on a Sunday night but we stayed for a look and it wasn't too shabby at all. Funny thing was that after they were done in that square they then went on a merry stroll around the streets and wondered past our window well after midnight. Crazy spanish...
We weren't making the same mistake as we did coming into Valencia so we were up and out of Valencia (after a full night's sleep!)well before 8am so there was no traffic except for the drunks coming home from the night before. Off to Barcelona!!
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