Valencia, Spain April 5-7

I am currently behind on the blog. I should have posts up about the cities I travelled to during Spring break; but I wanted to blog about my recent Valencia trip first because I don’t want to forget the details.

I met this boy named Justin in my grammar class, plus I played soccer with him every Tuesday. Somehow, something happened between us and now we are practically inseparable. We really enjoy spending time together and decided to do some traveling together.

We didn’t have school on Thursday or Friday because it is Semana Santa (Holy Week). During this week there are series of processions until Easter. The processions are a bit solemn. The people in the processions wear pointy hats and robes. They look like KKK members. Also they beat big bass drums as they process down the streets. 

Semana Santa Procession

On Thursday we got on a train to Madrid and then in Madrid we got on a train towards Valencia, Spain. The train tickets we got to Valencia were pretty cheap but because of this it would take the train about 5 hours to get to Valencia. This was because the train had to make many stops, and it went slower.

When we finally arrived, we had a little bit of trouble finding our hostel. Once we found it I was pleasantly surprised. It was one of the nicest hostels I’ve been in so far. We did some exploring, found dinner, and then went to bed. 

Catedral de Santa Maria de Valencia

The next day was busy. We peeked our heads into La Lonja de la Seja, which is where the silk exchange occurred. The building has beautiful gothic architecture. Then we saw the Cathedral of Santa Maria de Valencia. This is also in gothic style. Supposively this church holds the Holy Grail that was used at Christ’s last supper; but I didn’t see it. Then after this we made our way to the Torres de Serranos. These towers are the gateway to the city. 

Torres de Serranos

Across from the Torres de Serranos there are bridges that go over what used to be a river. This river bed is now filled with trees, fountains and paths. We descended into the river bed and walked along the paths. The sun was shining and the trees were so pretty. As we made our way down the river bed we ran into a bunch of fair tents. Inside the tents they had a beer stand and they also had fresh seafood. We ordered a mixed plate of seafood and as we were waiting for it to be cooked Justin saw one of the preparers pull out an octopus from a big steaming barrel. The man took scissors and cut the legs into little pieces. Justin’s eyes lit up and we had to order one; I was a little apprehensive about this. We got our plates of seafood and some coca-cola and tried everything. In our mixed plate we had scallops, the head of squid, squid legs, some sort of long clams, and lastly big shrimp/prawns. We also had our big plate of octopus. The octopus was kind of a dark purple/maroon color. It still had its sucker-cups on it and if you pressed the sucker to the plate it would stick. I was a bit nervous to try it but it was actually really good. All the seafood was great, except for the weird clam things. They kind of tasted like seawater. We both thoroughly enjoyed the food, and this was the happiest I had ever seen Justin. It was pretty funny.

Octopus

Justin and our Seafood

After this we continued down the river bed. We ran into a wall of beautiful purple flowers and also a great big fountain. Then we reached a great big playground. It was in the shape of a giant man. There were slides down the guy’s arms and legs, and climbing ropes on the side of him. Justin hadn’t been down a slide in years so we had to join the kids and go down one of the slides. 

The park

Farther down the river bed we made it to the Palau de Les Arts, Museum of the Sciences, and the City of Arts and Sciences. The buildings were really cool because they were spherical and surrounded by pools of water. This made it seem like the buildings were half under water. We decided to go to the Oceanografic, which is a giant aquarium. We waited in line for awhile but when we saw the price to get in we decided to go to the beach instead. 

City of Arts and Sciences

We took the city bus to the Playa de Levante o de Las Arenas. This beach is on the Mediterranean Sea. I expected the sea to have a greenish tint, but it was actually pretty blue. It wasn’t warm enough to swim but it was warm enough to dip your feet in the water. The sand was very light in color. We walked the beach and saw a man making a giant sand sculpture of Winnie the Pooh and we also saw people fishing. The sun was shining and so after our walk we decided to hangout on the beach. We spent hours sitting on the beach, listening to music, and talking. It was so relaxing. Then we found dinner at one of the restaurants on the beach. We had Sangria and paella Valenciana. Strangely this paella was not seafood paella; it had chicken and rabbit in it. 

The Beach!

The beach was on the exact opposite side of the city so we tried to find a metro or bus to bring us back. We got a bit lost and it was getting late. We ran into one of the Semana Santa processions. It was actually kind of creepy because it was dark out and the beating of the drums made everything so solemn. In the end we just decided to get a taxi.

The next day we had time before our train left so we went to the Botanical Garden. The garden was full of plants from all over. They had palm trees, cacti, and vegetables. I especially liked the garden because it was full of cats. I was ecstatic to find a cat nursing newborn kittens in one of the bushes. 

Justin acting like a Cactus

We left two hours early to get to our train home. We hopped on the metro in the wrong direction. Then we got on it again and started to go the right way. But then we got lost again when we needed to switch metro lines. We finally found the right line but realized that we were going to the wrong train station. Luckily we realized this early enough that we could back track a few metro stops in order to get there. We got on our train in the nick of time and made our way back to Salamanca. This time we had a faster train that didn’t make any stops so the ride was only two hours long.

Final thoughts: Valencia was a pretty nice city. The river bed walk and the beach are really what made Valencia shine. But more important than the city was the company. Justin was a really great travel buddy and we had an amazing time together.