Valencia: June, 23-25
If you didn't know, traveling in Spain is expensive. So, before we left we did a lot of research. This weekend we decided to use BlaBlaCar and we had a great experience. It's like hitch hiking and carpooling all organized online and we reaped the benefits of the low prices. Our driver picked us up at our apartment and dropped us off at our Airbnb, which is very unusual, but he wanted to make sure we were okay because of the language barrier. He did not speak ANY English but we got lucky because another person rode with us. He was Italian and spoke Spanish and, enough, English. It was a very long ride to Valencia due to traffic but we didn't mind because we learned all about the festival everyone was going to that night. We got a 10 minute break to shove food in, because we couldn't eat in the car.
When we arrived we changed into our beach clothes and joined the festival. We couldn't believe that it was near midnight and families with young children were showing up for the festival too. We had to jump over the warm ocean waves 7 times to bring us good luck.
The next morning we headed to town and we just happened upon another festival. There was so much free entertainment around and in the bull fighting ring.
These people scared the crap out of a little kid and he was doing the terrified scream thing, the parents were not happy, but we laughed hard! Below, we were in the bullfighting ring for a while listening to some live Spanish guitar music.
We walked around and found some beautiful sights. You can't dream these places up that's for sure. I stayed at the fountain for a while because it was so beautiful and because it took a long time to get this photo.
We snuck into the Cathedral right after a first communion and it was definitely a treat. We sat here for a while taking in the people and the scene. As we walked around, we found a mummified hand of a saint and it was kind of freaky.
When we were doing our research about Valencia two things stuck out: we had to have Horchata and Paella while we were there. So, naturally we took a break from the heat and drank some Horchata from this really really old place. Horchata is a Spanish drink made with Tigernuts, water, and sugar. I was not the biggest fan of the flavor but Nick liked it.
After exploring the city for a couple of hours we went right back to the beach and made a reservation for this famous place (
La Pepica ) If we would have made the reservation days in advance we would have been able to sit outside and watch the sun set, but we were able to see it at our table inside a little.
SO GOOD!!!!!
Sunday we woke up and went to church and did more exploring before we hit the beach again. We decided to walk the park that goes through the center of town and towards our house. The park used to be a river but they rerouted the river around the city instead of through it. Now you have a bunch of beautiful trees and fun things to do. First we stumbled upon Gulliver, the giant that was tied down. He had been made into a park for kids to play on. It was really cool because it had a lot of natural places to climb up and slide down.
When we finished playing we walked to the City of Arts and Sciences and they had some cool buildings.
We walked to the beach, grabbed a bite to eat, swam, and sunbathed. Did you know that the women in Spain sunbathe topless? Well, we found that fun fact out right before we went and I'm glad we did so we could mentally prepare ourselves. (not pictured for obvious reasons)
We rushed back to our place to shower and pack before we left for our long adventure back home. We had the same driver and that made life a lot easier, but the third passenger was a woman who spoke less English than we spoke Spanish. For some reason he had this little guy in his car and he was very confused about why Nick was taking a picture of him. (Apparently Big Bird is a Valencia CF fan)
Oh and here is a little bit of the amazing storm we drove through on our way home.
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