Paella, space age buildings and long lost relos - Valencia!

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I really enjoyed my time in Valencia. It is a really interesting city with lots of cool stuff to see and after just having hosted the America's Cup everything is shony and new and working (eg metro, airport) and the tourist facilities are awesome - eg handbooks with great restaurants etc. There is also fasincating architecture, art, musems, churches and great food!!! There is also the beach close by which I didnt make it to but I think its quite easy to get there on a bus.

The train station as we arrived was really pretty. Its been done in stained glass and mosaics and in the entrance hall there are plaques wishing people welcome in all different languages. I found the hostel which is in an awesome location - really central but the area it was in was really quiet for the 2 nights I was there. I highly recommend the Home chain of hostels if anyone wanted the name! The only downfall is there is no air con, however I had a window and 2 fans so it wasnt too bad.

Mum and Eric went to their hotel so we split up for the afternoon. I had a walk around and discovered I was about 2 mins walk from the fruit and veg markets - woo hoo! I headed for the main square Placa de le Reina and on the way found a Horcharteria so sat down. Horchata is a local drink that is made from tiger nuts and is milky, a bit like a milkshake. You drink it with these things called 'fartons' (hehe) which are long bready fingers (a bit like finger buns) that you dip into the horchata. I tried it and it was nice, but probably something I wouldnt drink all of the time especially in the heat!!

I then made a beeline for the Museu de Belles Arts. It is supposed to have one of the best collections in Spain of spanish art. I didnt realise but Valencia is the 3rd biggest city in Spain, so knowing this it makes sense that there is a good art gallery here.

Before getting to the Museum I crossed over the old river bed. The city used to be ringed by a river and in 1957 there was a really bad flood. After the flood they decided to divert the river elsewhere so there is a dried river bed around the city where the river once was! Its quite strange, espepcially as they still have the bridges over the old river, and ramps where they would have launched boats, going down into the dry bed. They have made the river bed into parklands though so have made good use of it, and built cycle and walking tracks, and football pitches as well (of course, everyone here is football crazy).

The Museu de Belles Arts had a temporary exhibition with lots of Goya paintings so I headed there first. I am not usually a fan of older art but this exhibition was totally enjoyable, mainly made up of portraits of royal family members from the 16th century. They were all dressed in their finest garments & jewellery which were so intricately painted, I had to get up close to make sure it was painted on and not the real jewellery or material! I then headed into the permanent collection which turned out to be totally religious. I'm talking hundreds of paintings of Christ - his birth, Mary and him, him on the cross, the ressurrection. There were also many other religious paintings - martyrs dying, saints etc. In fact it seemed like the whole permanent collectyion was religious. It was all a bit scary (some were quite graphic) so I made a beeline for the exit!

I was just in time to meet up with Mum and Eric for dinner. We met up with Mum's cousin Christabel and some of her family also. Christabel is Australian but met and married a Spanish man years ago and has lived here all that time and now has 3 kids. Her husband Miguel came along as did the youngest son Gabriel. We met at 8 and started with a drink as she and the family don't normally eat until 10pm. I am slowly getting used to this pace of life in Spain - lunch happens around 2 or 3 and dinner not until at least 9pm, usually 10.

We started off with a drink in the square behind the cathedral. Conversations wqere interesting as Christabel speaks fluent english and spanish, and her son and husband speak spanish and a little bit of english. We dont speak any spanish so Christabel had to do a bit of translating! She works as an art restorer and told me she has restored many of the paintings in the Museu de Belles Artes (the permanent collection) which was interesting.

We headed for dinner to a fab Italian restaurant (in Spain, go figure) but I had pasta that was so fresh it was possibly better than stuff I ate in Italy and the best cheesecake ever! Over dinner we all got to know each other better and mum and I got to quiz Christabel on the spanish way of life - eg do little kids stay up until 10pm for dinner? (answer - yes). What time do kids go to school in the morning if they dont go to bed until 12 or 1am? (9am like all other kids). What do Spanish people eat for breakfast? (coffee - even the kids). Fascinating!! It was a lovely evening and at the end we bade farewell and promised to keep in touch.

On Thursday I got up and headed to the markets for breakfast. They are in a beautiful old building similar to the markets in Barcelona, with ornate stained glass and white wrought iron inside. I then had some errands to run and tried to get to a square near the cathedral for midday. Each Thursday there is a local council which gathers to hear issues with water/ irrigation from the local farmers. It is quite unique as it is only spoken law and this is quite rare. I made it there at about 3 mins after 12 and they were all packing up - so obviously noone had serious issues with water this week!! (or they were all on holidays).

I then headed into the Cathedral to have a look around. They claim to have the Holy Grail in the cathedral which is quite interesting, and it is a fascinating mix of gothic, baroque and romanesque architecture, with an interesting museum as well.

I then met up with Mum and Eric and we headed out to the Arts and Sciences complex. This is the massive, modern complex that has been built and in all the stories you will read about Valencia. It comprises a planetarium, conference centre, aquarium, science museum and more. We didnt necessarily want to go in any of the buildings (the aquarium alone costs 22 euro and Gabriel told me it was disappointing after having gone to Sydney aquarium). The architecture was amazing, the buildings architectural feats. I felt a little like I was on the set of an Alien movie and one of the buildings was going to take off and fly into outer space! There is a huge walkway that has been set up to look like the skeleton of a whale, and another building that looks like an eye opening. They are truly magnificent to look at, and most of the buildings have been mosaiced in a white tile that is shiny and catches the light of the sun, so they are beautiful to look at with the sun reflecting off them.

We walked around the complex and headed for the Aquarium building. They have a restaurant there called Submarine where you are sitting in a huge fish tank in the restaurant and we were keen to go there for lunch. Unfortuantely we hadnt booked a table and it was fully booked so we had to find somewhere else to go! We ended up finding a great tapas restaurant back in Barrio del Carmen and chowed down with a beer & lemonade concoction they drink here (which we would call a shandy!).

After lunch we headed to the Ceramics Museum. Christabel had recommended this as the best thing to do in Valencia. I am glad she did, as it didnt even feature in Lonely Planet but ended up being amazing! It is housed in a beautiful rococo building (mum was in heaven) which used to be a palace. They have preserved the interior including the furniture, so not only are there beautiful ceramics to look at, you also get to look inside the house. Amazing!

For dinner I went back to Mum and Eric's hotel. We had said for the whole time we would eat paella in Valencia and somewhere good. Ididnt want to go to one of those restaurants with the pictures of the food out the front ie very touristy! The restaurant at the hotel didnt disappoint. We ordered Valencian paella which turned out to be paella with chicken and sea snails! We had seen these crawling around at the markets in Barcelona so were quite surprised to see them in the paella. Eric and I tucked in but mum was a bit more squeamish. The rice itself was gorgeous and soooo tasty. I suspect there was a lot of butter in it but it was the best paella I have had! I went to bed a very happy person last night!

Mum, Eric and I bade farewell as they are off on their 2 week tour of Spain, POrtugal and Morocco and I am in Seville to meet up with Robyn, Dan, Jess and Chook (friend of Robyns). I have a feeling much sangria will be drunk tonight...

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Photos

Family photo
L- r, Miguel, Gabriel, Christabel, Moi and Mum