Our ship (not boat..) pulled in this morning around 7am and we caught some nice pink sky over breakfast. We usually go to Windows Restaurant which is the buffet style dining room on level 9. The ship leaves tonight at 6:00 or so so we have to be back on board by 5:45 pm.
We heard the professor's talk on Valencia so we knew about what to expect. Valencia has these ultra-modern buildings they built for an enormous amount of money and it seems they are paying off, with all the tourists it attracts and all the local concerts they hold there. The city has a river running through it that flooded from time to time so they built a canal that
bypassed the river. They were originally going to build a highway on the now empty river front but instead they built a very long park with all kinds of public spaces. Part 2 of our adventure was walking from the modern buildings, up the river/park and on to the old town where the thousand year old stuff is. The walk from the ship to the zoomy buildings was about 45 minutes. The first thing we came upon was what looked like a bio-dome kind of amusement park, aquarium and animal park which was very busy with families and kids. There was a fee for admission but we realized that what we wanted to see were the zoomy science center and other structures next door (no fee). Wow was it beautiful. Hats off to the architects.
Next we walked to the old town which took another 45 minutes or so. They of course had the required giant cathedral (we have seen a lot of cathedrals..) but we searched for the Mercado, which is a giant warehouse type building (old and classy warehouse) which was really busy. The locals buy all their meat, veggies and fruit there and then you add the tourists and the place gets packed. We escaped and found a small cafe which sold paella. So beer (I ordered a half liter by mistake, oh well) and we got seafood and chicken paella which we shared.
What we enjoy most of all is just walking up the narrow, ancient back streets. Deb found the Barrio Carmen which was quiet and more “local”. We found coffee and tea on a small back street (everyone sells coffee and pastries) and then wiggled our way back through town to the river-walk. It took an hour and a half to walk back to the ship. We met our friends John and Pam from England and had a nice long dinner. The assistant cruise director put on an hour “70’s” show. They have a lot of very talented people here to entertain us. The house band is great and after talking to the cruise director after the show, he said all of their entertainment is designed by an outfit in California, so this is big time stuff and it shows.
We walked about 20,000 steps today so bed felt really good
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