{"id":2144,"date":"2018-05-30T03:02:17","date_gmt":"2018-05-30T10:02:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/?p=2144"},"modified":"2019-03-01T16:44:44","modified_gmt":"2019-03-02T00:44:44","slug":"valencia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/valencia\/","title":{"rendered":"Valencia"},"content":{"rendered":"
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View from our apartment<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

It seemed like a longer day than it was.\u00a0 We got up in good time, ate breakfast, did the final pack and clean, and walked to the train station.\u00a0 It was raining though, and we got a little wet.\u00a0 Surprisingly, we had a couple of major downpours in Madrid over the week.\u00a0 We had expected hot and dry, but we got rain a few times along with some pretty wicked thunderstorms.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The train to Valencia was fast, clocking well over 200+ km\/hr. for most of the trip and when we arrived, it was HOT.\u00a0 No rain in sight, but that would follow us later.\u00a0 We took our time getting to the next airBNB, but the 50 minute walk was nice after being on the train.\u00a0 It\u2019s always a bit interesting and often frustrating getting to a new city.\u00a0 We check out beforehand where we need to go and I have google maps lined up and ready and we always try to get a local area map from the tourist info booth.\u00a0 But once you get outside the train station, you are almost always confronted with which exit are we at and what direction we\u2019re facing.\u00a0 There always seems to be a main street in front of the station, 8 or 9 angled streets leading off from it, and for some reason, they never line up with what is on google maps!\u00a0 So, we spend about 30 minutes getting our bearings, walking a while, checking the maps against the street signs, backtracking, checking the maps.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

We were nice and sweaty by the time we got to the airBNB.\u00a0 Ring the bell.\u00a0 No answer.\u00a0 Ring a bunch of times, no answer.\u00a0 Since I have perpetual phone issues, (don\u2019t ask), I start looking around for \u2018options\u2019.\u00a0 We spot some guy coming up the street and ask him if he can make a quick phone call for us.\u00a0 We did this in Madrid btw, people are very accommodating.\u00a0 Call the host\u2019s number.\u00a0 No answer.\u00a0 We wander off to find a caf\u00e9\/bar\/McDonalds\/whatever so we can get some WiFi.\u00a0 It\u2019s Monday so of course, everything\u2019s closed.\u00a0 We actually find a bar close by that IS open, grab a table, order 2 beers, and ask to use the WiFi.\u00a0 The bar guy was very nice, got the beers, and gave us free tapas of olives and black rice.\u00a0 I suspect it was squid ink with fishy bits.\u00a0 Teresa doesn\u2019t particularly like the seafood here as apparently it\u2019s \u2018fishy\u2019.\u00a0 Whatever.\u00a0 It went down nicely with the beer.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

So, we sort things out over the WiFi\/airBNB with the host.\u00a0 He say\u2019s the cleaning person is there, just ring the bell and she\u2019ll let us in.\u00a0 He can\u2019t make it but it\u2019s all good. OK.\u00a0 We finish up, thank the bar guy, go back to the apartment and ring the bell.\u00a0 A Few times.\u00a0 No answer.\u00a0 I\u2019m thinking evil thoughts at this point.\u00a0 A delivery guy comes by and delivers a big box to the apartment block.\u00a0 Teresa sneaks in behind him and goes up to the 3rd<\/span><\/sup> floor to pound on some doors.\u00a0 The cleaning person is there, and we finally get in.\u00a0 Yeah!\u00a0 She doesn\u2019t speak a lick of English and I change my mind about asking pointedly why the f***k don\u2019t you just answer the doorbell?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Anyway, we are here now for 10 days.\u00a0 The apartment has a great view overlooking the huge greenway park that follows the old river bed running through the city.\u00a0 We are some distance from the downtown core for a change, but the apartment comes with bikes and we like walking.\u00a0 This journey is coming to an end already.\u00a0 Time flies!\u00a0 The weather is nice and the apartment comfy, so we will chill for a while and check out the city at a leisurely pace.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The rain and thunderstorms have finally caught up to us, but we needed groceries (and alcohol) so we headed out anyway.\u00a0 It\u2019s not like we haven\u2019t been drenched today.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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The Jacarandas are in bloom!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  It seemed like a longer day than it was.\u00a0 We got up in good time, ate breakfast, did the final pack and clean, and walked to the train station.\u00a0 It was raining though, and we got a little wet.\u00a0 Surprisingly, we had a couple of major downpours in Madrid over the week.\u00a0 We had expected hot and dry, but we got rain a few times along with some pretty wicked thunderstorms. The train to Valencia was fast, clocking well over 200+ km\/hr. for most of the trip and when we arrived, it was HOT.\u00a0 No rain in sight, but that would follow us later.\u00a0 We took our time getting…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2144"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2144"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2155,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2144\/revisions\/2155"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}