Wednesday 23rd April – Valencia – What would the kids know?

By mid morning we had developed out our rule for travel planning – Rule 1 – “never listen to your kids”

We strolled along the green belt past groves of trees that were the Spanish equivalent of a Boa tree towards the centre of town with Bernadette as our travel guide.

Having Bernadette as a travel guide is quite useful. On this occasion her unerring sense of direction meant that when were in the midst of the old city we were able to experience every lane, street and roadway and to wander past both monument and residential backdoor. Everyone should experience Bernadette as a travel guide – you simply – have faith and follow - then magically in front of you appears a superb coffee shop - this occurs right at the time at which you started to wonder why your parents had not genetically endowed to you an extra dollop of patience. For fellow travellers who come behind me – my apologies – I have no idea where the coffee shop was but I can assure you the coffee itself was superb.

A tour of the town on the double deck bus revealed Valencia to be a wonderful mixture of the old and the new. We found it to be a large vibrant place with some very adventurous architecture.

We were particularly impressed by the very large (the less refined would say huge so I suppose I should say huge) Science Park at the end of the green zone. The architecture is extraordinary and it is hard to imagine Australia giving so much freedom to an individual designer.

Bernadette could not wait any longer .. she had to have Paella Valenciana (Valencia gave birth to paella) for lunch so it was on to the Valancian tram system for a ride out through the suburbs to the port site with its brand new hotels, its beautiful wide beaches, its semi naked old sunbaking women who really should have known better and its beachfront eating strip. We arrived at 1:00pm so of course no one was there …. We did however find one of the places opened – as it turn out it was the one recommended by our hotel and again we play acted out the menu with a nice Spanish wait lady.

Our reaction to Paella is best left to the photographs.

A two hour lunch, a stroll along the beachfront to the hotel and a tram ride back through some quite uncomfortable suburbs back into town and back to the hotel rounded off the afternoon. Our trip through the suburbs on the tram made us understand why the hotel really suggested that we go to the port for lunch rather than dinner – I don’t think I would like the trip during the evening.

A long afternoon nap was the ideal preparation for Tapas and beer at a local bar. Dishes of Iberian ham, minced, skinless tomatoes and potatoes topped with spicy, minced eggplant. The Tapas bars open a little earlier so we were settled back into our hotel base at a respectable (by Albury standard) hour.

We loved Valencia!