We left Barcelona and luckily it was Saturday so there was not too much traffic. We had spotted a place on the map that we thought sounded a good spot for a lunch break! It was called Peniscola, so for obvious reasons we had to check it out! It is known as the “Gibraltar of Valencia”, a very picturesque coastal town.

It is a very picturesque coastal town with km after km of beach and of course Greg had to paddle. Its old town has the Castello perched on top. The views from the ramparts were pretty stunning. There were absolutely heaps of people on the beach, hate to think what it’s like at the height of the summer season.

We then continued onto Valencia, a city full of contrasts with its charming old town next to the ultra modern futuristic architecture of the City of Science and Arts. Although we had quite a walk to the old town, our apartment overlooked some of the amazing buildings of the “City”. It was created on an old river bed and runs for about 2kms, It consists of 6 areas surrounded by pools of water and all the buildings have stunning architecture.

The Science Museum resembles a whale skeleton and the L’Hemisphere is an IMAX theatre and planetarium and is meant to resemble a giant eye,

The Palau de les Arts or the Opera House is over 75 metres high and is rather impressive. L’Umbracle is a landscaped walkway with many plants and trees, including of course many orange trees!

The whole construction cost the city of Valencia 1.200 million euros, 4 times over the budgeted cost. Its construction began in 1994 and the precinct was formally opened in the year 2000. It was an amazing place to wander around!

The Pont de lar Mar dates back to 1591 and Greg loved the reflection. The Serranos Towers were part of Valencia’s medieval walls. Construction began in 1392 and the towers were saved from demolition when the city walls were knocked down in 1865. They were used as a prison for the nobility between 1586 and 1887. They were rather impressive! After a long walk up to the old town from our apartment, we needed to hydrate, and entered the Cafe de las Horas.

You would never guess that this cafe only opened in the mid 1990’s but it was like entering a time capsule. Our main reason for going there was so that Julie and Rhonda could experience their first “Agua de Valencia” a refreshing cocktail that “captures the essence of the city”. It consists of freshly squeezed orange juice (from Valencian oranges of course) cava, a sparkling Spanish wine, vodka and gin! It went down very easily, a little too easily actually but we were hot!

Our lunch stop had a view of La Catedral del Santo Caliz or the Cathedral of the Holy Chalice which was completed in the 17th century. The chalice inside the cathedral is supposedly “the same cup that the Lord used at the Last Supper”. We were a little sceptical so decided not to pay the entry fee to view it!Lunch was good though and another Aqua de Valencia was bought just to make sure we really enjoyed them!

We kept walking and walking. We saw the Bull Ring built between 1850 and 1859. The City Hall was built in the 18th century and it stands in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento which also had other rather impressive buildings.

We had a great day wandering the streets of Valecia and admiring the gorgeous buildings.

The following day we decided it was going to be a bit of a “rest day”. We caught a taxi back to the old town because we had to go to the market and have traditional pastry of Valencia called a farton! The Mercat Central de Valencia is said to be the largest market with fresh produce in Europe. We do dispute that, however its art noveau style inside did impress us. We were told we must have a farton with a horchata. We opted for a coffee with our farton although Julie experienced her first horchata, a drink made from soaked tiger nuts, milk, cinnamon and a “shit load” of sugar. The fartons however were rather delicious, we actually had 2 each, so much for the waistlines!

Then we made our way to the Lonja de la Seda or the Silk Exchange, a UNESCO site and listed as one of the best Gothic architecture sites in Europe. The silk trading was performed in the Contract room with its many impressive spiral columns. The building has a lovely courtyard with of course the obligatory orange trees. It was a beautiful building.

We then had to return home and spruce ourselves up for our lunch reservation. Valencia is the “home of paella”, and when we asked our host for a recommendation of where to eat the best paella she told us we MUST go to the small fishing village of El Palmar, about 20 kms from the city centre and go to a particular restaurant. The village is where the dish of paella was born and is surrounded by rice paddy fields. We enjoyed a fabulous lunch

Our grilled vegetables and grilled cuttlefish starters were both divine and then came the reason we were there. Our rabbit, chicken and duck paella arrived and it was absolutely delicious.

As you can see we polished the whole dish off and almost wanted to lick the paella dish. We decided that one lemon cheesecake with 3 spoons would suffice for dessert but little did we know that then we would be given a freebie of lemon cake and sherry to finish off a fabulous lunch! As you could imagine no diner was eaten that night!

We all really enjoyed Valencia, a wonderful city joining the old and the new in a very interesting way. We are now in Madrid, but that blog is for another day!

Just a note to say that some people are saying our photos seem to be elongated or compressed on the blog. If you click on each photo individually it will bring it up to full size!

Hope all of you Melbournites are coping with that cold weather!!!!!!!

It’s that time again for us….siesta time…..well when in Spain!!!!

Lots of love

Greg , Rhonda and Julie.

xxxxxxx

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