Actual Valencia

Valencia itself was beautiful. It is a very old city with a lot of history. It is right on the coast and getting off the bus you could feel the salty air from the Mediterranean. Our hostel was perfectly located, right in the center of the historical district and about a three minute walk from the center of the city. Through the middle of the city runs a dry river bed that is now utilized as a park of many sorts. It is probably a few miles long and a quarter mile wide. In some places there are trails and grass and trees, like a central park. Other places have fútbol fields where teams played on the weekends. The town center had three main plazas. The first two bordered the famous cathedral of the city, built in the 1300’s. The last had a giant fountain and was more the commercial center with a magnificent palace on one corner and coffee shops and a Corte Inglés lining the streets. There was a protest from the first to the last plaza one night while we were there. It was also involving the economic crisis that is sweeping Spain and eliminating thousands of jobs.

The architecture of Valencia was incredible. Of course all the old architecture was magnificent and breathtaking. The details were so precise and the work put into the buildings was daunting. Valencia also has a museum of sciences, which is the new architectural center of the city. Those buildings were also insane, with modernist/space-like architecture. The buildings were supposed to resemble a giant crustacean; I never saw the resemblance but was blown away by the architecture. There we enjoyed the Oceanográfico, or Europe’s sea world. It was very fun and a very good way to pass a rainy day.

The weather was rainy and cold, as it is in all of Spain right now, but I did not mind so much. We saw the Mediterranean. It was a beautiful, beautiful ocean, and I picked two seashells from the sand. One night we went out to the park and enjoyed the salty sea air with a bottle of wine and a picnic. The next we went out with some people we met at the hostel. Of course we had Valencia’s famed Paella, and it definitely lived up to its expectations. Valencia is the place where Paella became famous, and the Paella de mariscos was delicious with the fresh shellfish.

It was a wonderful trip and we were all exhausted on the way back. We probably walked 6-8 miles each day, and it was so wonderful to come back to a warm meal and a warm bed in Alcalá.