Valencia – City of Contrasts

We relaxed for the first couple of days to recharge.  And we’ve become a little jaded I think. It’s a new place but the desire to rush out and see more cathedrals and castles….meh…not so much.  We are winding down and I think we are starting to get into full-metal vacation mode.  Lay around, soak up some sun, order drinks with tiny umbrellas.  Except we are in an airBNB and tiny umbrellas look stupid in a can of beer.  So, we may have to wander over to the beaches where we can lay around properly.

Valencia is quite pleasant. It’s the 3^rd largest city in Spain and has a different feel to Madrid or Barcelona.  For starters, the city seems more focused on the outdoors, with the lengthy river park (Turia Riverbed Park) running through it as I mentioned, for the walkers, many, many runners, bikers, soccer players, and dog walkers.  Outside our apartment the green space is a bustling hub of athletic activity.  Maybe it’s the weather?  It’s warm here, hot really, getting up to 30 most days so far, then cooling off at night often with clouds and thunderstorms.   As I said, very pleasant.

We are in a regular working-class area away from the center and the old historical area where the you know what hang out.  We got on the bikes on day 3 and went for an exploratory ride.  We needed to find a place to get air for the tires first though and we stopped to ask some biker dudes sitting on a bench. They were very nice and helpful and in broken Spanglish, we figured it out.  We really need to get fluent in Spanish though.  They sent us to a close by rent-a-bike place and the nice guys there filled up our tires.  Biking is big in Valencia and there are a LOT of bike rental joints here.  Those are mostly for the tourists, but they have an extensive bike sharing program to go along with the many bike lanes on the roads.  Gregor Robertson would be proud.  And it’s not only bikes, but tons of segways, vespas, and those tiny two-wheeled electric scooters you stand on.  You need to pay attention when you walk around here.

We rode to the other end of the river park, which is close to the ocean and that worked out well as major thunder clouds were rolling in by then.  The river park sort of ends at a 23^rd century collection of architectural wonders, straight out of a Star Trek movie; the Opera House, Hemispheric iMAX Theatre, the Museum of Sciences, the ‘City of Arts and Sciences’, and the two Aquariums, the Oceanografic and the Delfinario.  We will definitely be checking this out a little more.

Day 4 was a short stroll around some of the historical center.  We hopped the metro and made our way into the old walled city.  A very stark contrast to the sci-fi set from the day before.  Here in the old part are the usual things, like castles, towers, basilicas, and countless churches.  Every time you turn a corner, another relic appears.  And they all look beautiful.  The streets are very clean, and the relics seem ‘new’, almost like they have been scrubbed.  Less crowded too, although there are a fair number of tourists about.

We have a few days more here and there is plenty to explore.  Lots to eat too as this is the birthplace of paella after all.  There are also a couple of unique drinks to try, the Horchata, which is some sort of sweet milk, nut, spice thing that goes well with something else called a Farton.  Okay.  Will have to check that out!  Not so much the milk thing.   The other is called Agua de Valencia, which is not water at all, but a whole lot of alcohol mixed with orange juice. Piqued my interest. Maybe the Fartons will go with this instead?

As usual, too many things to do and and now the beaches are calling.