{"id":2275,"date":"2018-06-03T11:41:41","date_gmt":"2018-06-03T18:41:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/?p=2275"},"modified":"2019-03-07T10:27:43","modified_gmt":"2019-03-07T18:27:43","slug":"valencia-city-of-contrasts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/valencia-city-of-contrasts\/","title":{"rendered":"Valencia – City of Contrasts"},"content":{"rendered":"

We relaxed for the first couple of days to recharge.\u00a0 And we\u2019ve become a little jaded I think. It\u2019s a new place but the desire to rush out and see more cathedrals and castles\u2026.meh\u2026not so much.\u00a0 We are winding down and I think we are starting to get into full-metal vacation mode.\u00a0 Lay around, soak up some sun, order drinks with tiny umbrellas.\u00a0 Except we are in an airBNB and tiny umbrellas look stupid in a can of beer. \u00a0So, we may have to wander over to the beaches where we can lay around properly.<\/p>\n

Valencia is quite pleasant. It\u2019s the 3rd<\/sup> largest city in Spain and has a different feel to Madrid or Barcelona.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Outside our apartment the green space is a bustling hub of athletic activity.\u00a0 Maybe it\u2019s the weather? \u00a0It\u2019s warm here, hot really, getting up to 30 most days so far, then cooling off at night often with clouds and thunderstorms. \u00a0\u00a0As I said, very pleasant.<\/p>\n

We are in a regular working-class area away from the center and the old historical area where the you know what hang out.\u00a0 We got on the bikes on day 3 and went for an exploratory ride.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 We really need to get fluent in Spanish though.\u00a0 They sent us to a close by rent-a-bike place and the nice guys there filled up our tires.\u00a0 Biking is big in Valencia and there are a LOT of bike rental joints here.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Gregor Robertson would be proud. \u00a0And it\u2019s not only bikes, but tons of segways, vespas, and those tiny two-wheeled electric scooters you stand on.\u00a0 You need to pay attention when you walk around here.<\/p>\n

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Bridge across the Antiguo Cauce del Rio Turia (Turia Riverbed Park)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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.\u00a0 The river park sort of ends at a 23rd<\/sup> century collection of architectural wonders, straight out of a Star Trek movie; the Opera House, Hemispheric iMAX Theatre, the Museum of Sciences, the \u2018City of Arts and Sciences\u2019, and the two Aquariums, the Oceanografic and the Delfinario.\u00a0 We will definitely be checking this out a little more.<\/p>\n

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City of Arts and Sciences<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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L’Oceanogr\u00e0fic<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Day 4 was a short stroll around some of the historical center.\u00a0 We hopped the metro and made our way into the old walled city.\u00a0 A very stark contrast to the sci-fi set from the day before.\u00a0 Here in the old part are the usual things, like castles, towers, basilicas, and countless churches.\u00a0 Every time you turn a corner, another relic appears.\u00a0 And they all look beautiful.\u00a0 The streets are very clean, and the relics seem \u2018new\u2019, almost like they have been scrubbed. \u00a0Less crowded too, although there are a fair number of tourists about.<\/p>\n

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Valencia Cathedral<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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We have a few days more here and there is plenty to explore.\u00a0 Lots to eat too as this is the birthplace of paella after all.\u00a0 There are also a couple of unique drinks to try, the Horchata<\/strong>, which is some sort of sweet milk, nut, spice thing that goes well with something else called a Farton<\/strong>. \u00a0Okay. \u00a0Will have to check that out! \u00a0Not so much the milk thing. \u00a0\u00a0The other is called Agua de Valencia<\/strong>, 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?<\/p>\n

As usual, too many things to do and and now the beaches are calling.<\/p>\n

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We also stumbled onto this movie set<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We relaxed for the first couple of days to recharge.\u00a0 And we\u2019ve become a little jaded I think. It\u2019s a new place but the desire to rush out and see more cathedrals and castles\u2026.meh\u2026not so much.\u00a0 We are winding down and I think we are starting to get into full-metal vacation mode.\u00a0 Lay around, soak up some sun, order drinks with tiny umbrellas.\u00a0 Except we are in an airBNB and tiny umbrellas look stupid in a can of beer. \u00a0So, we may have to wander over to the beaches where we can lay around properly. Valencia is quite pleasant. It\u2019s the 3rd largest city in Spain and has a different…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2412,"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\/2275"}],"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=2275"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2275\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4337,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2275\/revisions\/4337"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/travelblog.lewington.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}