Valencia (day two)

I am supposed to be writing my dissertation right now so obviously this is the best time to upload photos and write journal entries. It's part of my whole "process" involving procrastination and abject self-loathing. The truth of the matter is that I am at the library, my computer has 90% of its battery left, and I'm here until it runs out. That might take two or three hours, but it goes faster using higher energy sucking programmes like the internet.

Anyway, this is day two in Valencia. Dave and I went on a mission to walk from Old Town to the new part of the city to the Meditteranean, which happens to be at least a five mile walk. After tapas and lots of wine the night before, we headed out around 10, found a coffee bar, three accordian players and numerous amazing looking bakeries on the way. We ate something that resembled a pizza but tasted like baked sugar and almond heaven before wandering to the Oxbow Riverbed on the outskirts of Old Town.

As legend or history have it, the river Turia flooded in the 70s killing some people and devastating the local economy. In retribution, the king or president or someone important in Spain decided they were going to reroute the river to outside of the city and save themselves some grief. What's left is a dried oxbow lake that the city has now turned into a very long, very leafy green with palm trees, park. At the end of the park lies the Ciudad de Artes y Ciencas and the Oceanografic, Europe's largest (and probably most expensive) aquarium. Which was impressive even though we missed seeing the sharks. Valencia did a very good job mixing the ultra-modern with the relatively ancient, and I was impressed to see how two our two days in the city were completely different.

We made one final stop at the beach and the America's Cup sailing races which is basically a huge venue with a gigantic tv screen, a pier, a free ferry to see all the skulls of the boats and the trophy itself. I'm obsessed with New Zealand racing, and we did manage to catch one of their races on the big screen. though the venue boasted to be "crowd pleasingly close to the shore", it was still pretty impossible to see details unless we were watching the screen. it was a pretty fantastic venue though, and the weather was perfect for sailing.


Turia Gardens


Artes y Ciencas Building. it has an eyelid that it can shut for daytime shows at the planetarium


20 euro entrance fee


really long tunnel with tropical sea life


at the america's cup


America's Cup Trophy and the Louis Vuitton Cup in the background


bottom half of the spanish and south african boats


"crowd pleasingly close"

I'm generally not unsatisfied with any of my travels, but I will say that Valencia pleasantly surprised me. I didn't expect much, but i'd encourage people to go and check it out. The whole Valencians language is like a tricky mix between Spanish and French, the paella is lovely, and really, we heard some of the best accordian music in the world.