Blogs from Valencian Community, Spain, Europe - page 80

13.05.2006 The day started with a torrential down pour - the type that makes you want to bury yourself under the covers - and we thought we’d be in for a rather drab day, but we were back on the horse after our day off at the beach in Calpe and rearing to go and see what Valencia City was all about. And I can tell you, the bells of St Clemens have nothing on these guys - there are oranges, lemons, limes, grapefruits and any other citrus you care to imagine at every turn, even in the middle of a town with 1.5m people! Valencia is about 80Km from where we are staying in Oliva, but Sarah made short work of the trip on the A7, as her petrol head days of old came through. ... read more

Top tip when in Oliva - don’t take the piss out of the naff 70’s ceiling in the place you are staying for a week…the has-been Spanish style gods will strike you down and force you to spend at least 2 days flat on your back (if you can bear it) looking at and appreciating their greatest works. I thought this was but just another urban myth from our friends in the lonely planet, but I can now attest to its authenticity and its absolute ferocity. But given our time is limited here I decided to take matters into my own hands (mixing over strength beer and over strength pain killers) and pulled myself up and told the Spanish gods of 70’s style that I will not lie down that easily - in fact it was ... read more

We had a very nice lazy morning this morning, just relaxing, taking it easy, no rush to be anywhere, which meant we left the house after midday - a first for us on this holiday. As we were driving to Denia, which is a small town on the Costa Blanca about 20kms from Olivia, Gabor’s back started playing up and by the time we got there it had seized up completely leaving Gabor in considerable pain and unable to walk. Sarah went off to the tourist info kiosk to see if there were any Doctors nearby only to find it closed as it was after 2.30. Everything in Spain shuts for a few hours after 2pm for Siesta, but they open late, usually till 8.30 at the earliest. So we decide to head home with Sarah ... read more

“as the site is close to the sea, and valencia is so dry, i decided to make water a major element for the whole site using it as a mirror for the architecture.” -santiago calatrava (architect of the ciudad de artes y ciencias) the ciudad de las artes y las ciencias (city of arts and sciences - www.cac.es) is a white monster of modern architechture. it is built where a river used to run (so, in a dry riverbed), and with the provided sidewalk you can walk all the way to downtown valencia. neato, gang... on friday night we started walking along the riverbed walk with the intention to go to downtown valencia (we hadn´t been there yet as we had gone to the beach that afternoon instead). basically the entire time we were walking we ... read more

Our first (serious) travel experience! Started absolutely fantastic, ended even better :) We stayed at this pretty hotel in a tiny place called L'liana , right nearby Valencia. And it was a good choice. Instead of listening to busy streets and being annoyed by noisy pedestrians we could sleep peacefully, away from the city. That's all we really wanted regarding nights, because we weren't going to spend all days in the room or a swimming pool. It took us a whole week to discover the Spanish beauty and wonders. Every single morning we would wake up at 8 am, have some gorgeous breakfast (such as MASSIVE strawberries or watermelons) and wander off to a bus stop, where we would catch a bus to the city of Valencia. Apart from admiring enormous palm trees and sunny weather, ... read more