Update from Valencia Spain

Sunday, January 29, 2012 – We’re up at 7:30 because we need to pick up our leased vehicle at 9 AM.  Breakfast is included in the hotel price and we are thrilled with the choices and quality of the food, a fabulous breakfast buffet including made to order omelettes.  Our choices were definitely more to our liking and tastes!  No more powdered scrambled eggs, pink colored meat called “sausage” that we weren’t sure what type of meat it was although we knew it wasn’t pork… and loads of bread.  Two weeks of the same kind of stuff, was tiresome - one of the downfalls of a tour.

            We figured out that the place where we had to pick up our car had to be close to our hotel.  So, we called and sure enough it was not far from our hotel, so the man  brought the vehicle to us, saving us time.   In about 15 minutes the paperwork is signed, and we have gone through the car orientation and are ready to hit the road.  Learning from Lyon, we checked the fuel gage and see, it’s near empty, we fuel up and head out on the road.

            With the GPS programmed for no toll roads, we head out from Barcelona to Valencia, 480 km south.  Valencia is Spain’s 3^rd largest city and is located on the coast as well.  We head northwest a bit then head south passed Monserrat,

 through mountains and then plateau with lots of farmland.

We stop halfway along the trip for a bite to eat at a café we find open.  As M’s back has not yet fully recovered (the long sitting episodes in the van are not recommended therapy for a sore lower back) he goes for a walk to loosen up before sitting for lunch and he comes back to report he has found a new favorite sign.

On Sundays most places are closed in this country.  Finding anything open is great.  One cannot be picky in Spain on Sundays, we learned that in Barcelona in December.

            Our drive took us through a variety of landscape.  We pass naturally terraced farmland, olive tree groves, orchards well groomed and pruned not ready to bloom, trees blooming with pink blossoms, and miles and miles of orange trees.

Like in southern Italy with its olive trees, here we see thousands and thousands of orange trees loaded with ripe fruit.  We travel inland toward Lleida , then south along the coast.  As we get south of Vinaros we begin to see cities with loads of condo highrises in Castellon de la Plana.   We arrive in Valencia around 3:30 and follow the directions from the landlord as well as our friendly GPS to locate the street the apartment is on. 

Once we are off the main boulevard, the side streets narrow to one lane with cars parked on either side.  We manage to find a spot and call Graham on M’s cell and find out he’s laid up with a back issue, so his wife came down to bring us up to the apt.  She helps us with the baggage, entering at street level we must walk up 4 floors along fairly narrow marble staircases (about 60 steps, I think T must have counted) to arrive at the apt door.  The staircase experience reminded T and J of when we were in Riomaggiore.  The apt has 2 bedrooms and is built in such a way that there are several internal light shafts within the building to allow for natural light even to first floor apartments.  Good thing, otherwise, it would be pretty dark in here.  Things look good, we’ll enjoy the location and digs for the week.  While we were getting settled, J was invited over to play Playstation with Liam, 12.  Even though language was somewhat of a barrier, he enjoyed himself.  M drove around for about 20 minutes trying to find a parking spot, and was eventually rewarded with a spot he thought would be great for the week.

As we had not been able to get any groceries yet we are off to find what might be open today, and luckily find a pizza place that although small is good food. We find we have several TV channels that show English shows and movies, so we enjoy a Robin Williams movie after dinner. J learns that we have the Disney Channel so he aims to get caught up seeing his favorite shows this week.  

            Monday, January 30, 2012 – First day in Valencia and we wake at our own pace, up at 8:15.  First on the agenda is to scope out the neighborhood to see what shops are nearby.  Like all European cities we have been in, shops/restaurants have the metal shutters pulled over the entrance, so we had no idea what was what.  We are staying near the old city of Valencia, to be explored this week.  It is the classic condo/apartment setup we have seen in other larger cities.  Little shops on street level with apartments above.  We’re in the heart of high density housing, where there’s not a lot of wasted space.  The view from one of our windows is a series of apt block balconies with laundry hanging and the occasional potted plant, typical of city apt living.

            We found a café, a block from the apt, to enjoy a coffee and soak up the scene.  It’s the opposite of what we’ve just experienced in Morocco, this place is full of mostly women having coffee.  About 15 min. later, more men show up.  We had a chuckle over this.  We stopped at a few shops in the neighborhood for groceries.  It was nice to wander about on our own time.  Today is just hangout and get to know the neighborhood.  Later on we went for a walk in the sunshine, along one of the main streets enjoying the 16 C and checking out some of the sights.  Tonight we had our first home cooked meal since leaving home and all three of us welcomed it.  M finds an old Columbo movie on TV as the evening’s entertainment. T decides to model her new Moroccan slippers for J and M (for the Mallettes she calls them her 'Uncle Al' shoes).

            Tuesday, January 31, 2012 – Today was a true Shaw Adventure day!  It started off like yesterday – sleep in, go out for caps and walk about checking out some more of the neighborhood.  On our way back from our exploration and picking up a couple of things, M thought we’d check on our vehicle that has been parked on the street a few blocks away from the apt.  Finding parking in this city is a nightmare, so M had been really pleased with finding this spot for our vehicle.  As we came around the corner, M looked in the direction of where he parked and the place where the car should have been was a weekly market stall, and T hears a “Oh this isn’t good”…   As we got to the spot where the car should be, he noticed for the first time, that there was a sign saying no parking on Tuesdays 8 – 15h (although is his defence the sign did not face the driver so you could not see it as you drove up).  Oh no, we’ve been towed!  Well now we have to find out where it is.  Once back at the apt we email our landlord and he made a phone call to his police friend, who told him where the car was. 

            After lunch, around 12:30, we hail a taxi to the municipal pound to get the car – in another area of the city, about 15 min. by cab.   Once there T hands a note from Marguerita to the clerk behind the counter, but it doesn’t help us out.  No one in the office speaks English and we have no idea how to get our car.  There’s something we need to do, but we don’t understand a word she is saying!!  Good thing M brought his phone and called Marguerita, who talks to the woman at the desk.  Once we talk to Marguerita, we find out we have to take the paperwork with us to a police station to pay the parking fine, and for them to clear the car as it’s foreign. 

            We took another cab back across the city to the police station on Emilio Baro St. We arrive there, no one speaks English here either, and apparently we are missing some other paperwork.  The man in charge immediately recognizes what we need to do. He shakes his head and writes on a paper numerically the order of events we need to complete to get the car. First we need go to another location first, then come back to this police station, and finally we can go back to the pound and get our car. He recognizes we have no vehicle and is surprised we are willing to pay for taxis to get this done, versus his suggestion of the bus routes that will work. So, we take our paperwork we got from the compound, and hail another cab.  Another 15 min cab ride, we arrive at a building where we find out, we pay our fine.  The guy who works at the desk speaks some English and helps us out and gives us our receipt.  Armed with this, we return to the police station, and meet the same gentleman from earlier.

            After about 10 min of waiting for paper processing, we are finally ready to return to the pound.  It is now 3:30! Back across the city we travel again!  This has been one expensive error!!  Oh well, we had to look at the bright side, every time we rode in a different cab, we took a different route and saw a different part of the city, although for that much money we could likely have a private tour for the day.  Boy does this city ever have some cool architecture!

            With the whopper of the tow bill paid, we drive back to the apt in about 20 min and spend another 20 to find a parking spot, not an easy feat, yet we are eventually rewarded with a spot that we each confirm has no hidden signs that might enable a repeat of this afternoon’s fun.  With the car locked up, we head over to the mall nearby to get J some new runners, they have served him well although its only been 3 months and they have holes in the sides. We also take this opportunity and to set up our Iphone with a Spanish sim card.  It took an hour to get the phone organized, but we now have service.

            We walk back to the apt and are pleased to veg after this afternoon’s adventure - good thing we didn’t wait until Sat. to check on the car!

Wednesday, February 1, 2012 - Usual routine this AM.  We decide to walk in a different direction this time to explore.  We find a bakery and pick up some quiche and something that we hope J will like for today’s breakfast.  We did stop by to check on the vehicle to make sure it was still in the same spot – we’re a bit paranoid now!  All is well in that department, so we head back. 

J has to do some schoolwork and then we are off this afternoon to explore the park system that has been built along the former riverbed.  This system is about 7 km long and was built on the site where at one time the Turia River flowed.  The river was diverted after a devastating flood in 1957.  In its place is a wonderful park system with infrastructure of soccer, football, and rugby as well as fountains, sitting areas and playgrounds for all ages. 

There are all kinds of trees, that come spring, the park must be fabulous, because right now, it looks great without the leaves on the trees.  Today we walk about for almost two hours here, enjoying the warmth of the sun. Then we head back to the apartment for dinner and J gets his fix of English TV.

Thursday, February 2, 2012 – It’s cool how we can just walk into the café and they get our order ready for us.  This has been the case, since the second morning after the lady confirmed that we wanted what we had the day before.  Of course this is a local café and we are clearly not one of the locals but its great to be treated by their service and smile each morning. We made the rounds of the shops for today’s meals and then head back to the apt to have breakfast with J.  J has schoolwork to complete before we can head out to explore.

After the schoolwork is completed, we walked over to explore the Old City of Valencia.  We walked across one of the many bridges crossing over the parkland to reach the Torres de Serranos, one of the twelve gates that were found along the old medieval city wall.  Once we are on the other side of the wall gate, the roads narrow into one-way streets.

We found a restaurant to have some local paella, as it’s something we should have while here.  Then we went on a walk to check out more of the old section.  We stopped by the mercato centrale, but it was already closing for the day, we’ll come back another day.  We walked along streets, checking things out, then head back through the river-walk to our apt. Another typical night. T makes dinner, M cleans up, and then we find a Columbo movie.

Friday, February 3, 2012 – Today we’re off to walk to the Museo de les Sciencies, L’Hemisferic, L’Oceanografic buildings as well as a couple of other buildings and bridge designed by Santiago Calatrava.  We had seen these buildings in our Wonders of the World book and they are definitely an impressive collection of buildings.  Calatrava also designed the “Peace Bridge” that is currently being built in downtown Calgary.

Again we chose to walk along the river-walk, the Jardins Del Turia, parkway.  There are all kinds of people out riding bikes on the designated paths as well as joggers.

We have a 4.5 km walk to get there. Not too far from our destination, we come across “Gulliver” playground.  J was keen to check out this gigantic horizontal statue-cum-play park.  We find a park bench in the sunshine and hang while he plays and interacts with some kids.  Once he’s had his fill, we walked on. 

We decided to walk through the Science museum en-route to the Oceangraphy center where we paid to go in.  Within this center are a series of buildings, home to various aquatic animals.  We spent several hours enjoying the aquarium walking through tunnels and alongside walls of fish, sharks, mammals and other aquatic life.

We head back from the L’Oceangraphic at around 5:30 and it takes us about an hour to get back.  We decided to go out for dinner tonight, and in Spanish style, we head out after 9 PM. But we find that our neighborhood is not that lively at night and have around for 20 minutes or so until we find a open restaurant (the wind was cold tonight so we did not want to walk the additional 20 minutes to the Old City where there are many spots to chose from). J and M order pizzas but T decides to be adventuresome and orders something she has no idea what it is. When it comes we are have a laugh as its this HUGE helping of grilled meat served on a hanger-type-thing where the skewer hangs vertically over her plate and she has to tenderly take the meat and veggies off the skewer much to M and J’s enjoyment before she can eat it.

Saturday, February 4, 2012 - After coffee this AM, we stopped by to pick up some groceries for tomorrow as most stores are closed and we want to be sure we have some back-up food just in case we can’t find an open shop at our new destination.  We headed out around 11 to walk over to the old city to go to the mercato centrale to enjoy the market atmosphere in Valencia.  Today the wind is quite cold, there is a deep freeze of temperatures going on around Europe right now, Spain is actually the warm spot.  Today it is about 10 C, and that is cold for this time of year here.  We’re told that it’s much colder than usual.  Oh well, at least we’re not getting snow, like many of the other parts of Europe this week. 

We arrive at the mercato and see it’s just teeming with people.  The building is very large and there are hundreds of stalls dealing with fresh produce, meats cut to the customer’s request, fresh baked goods as well as other food stalls. 

T had read about a drink, horchata that the locals apparently really like and she found a stall that sold it.  It’s made of water, sugar and tigernut (chufas).  Good thing she only bought a piccolo as it was not to any of our tastes.  We wandered about the aisles picking up a fresh baguette, cookies, meat for dinner, and a few other treats for our trip tomorrow.  Once we’ve had enough of the crowd we left the mercato to find a place to have some lunch along one of the streets in the old city before heading back to the apt. 

We spent time organizing our bags for tomorrow’s departure and called a few family members via Skype.  It was great to have a chat and catch up.