We got off to a late start on our first day after waking up at 3:30pm. Yes, that's right, PM. Luckily Valencia is a fairly small city and we were able to hit most of the tourist spots before the sunset. Our walk started in the park near the Music Hall fountain where teens practice their skateboarding and tired feet get much needed rest. There were so many people everywhere doing their own thing seemingly oblivious to what other people thought. That's one of my favorite things about Europe' there's so much room for individuality.
Our walk continued and we were human sponges soaking up as much culture as we could. Both of us really enjoy looking at architecture so we were having a field day. There were beautiful bridges, a tower that used to be the entrance to the city (it still has damage from wars fought before the US existed) and many gorgeous churches. We even wandered into one that had a wedding going on. Dont worry, we didnt cause a scene, the public was allowed to roam about (pretty cool!) and enjoy the ceremony for as long as they pleased.
A little while into our tour, James had a craving for french fries, so we stopped at a McDonalds. The woman was trying to tell James something about his order (maybe there was a minimum?), but neither of us speak Spanish and we couldnt figure it out from body language. She eventually gave up and James got his fries. We marched on victoriously to a few more churches and, much to our satisfaction, realized that the sun doesnt set until about 8pm. Good thing since we had just barely woken up!
Night finally came around and we found a nice plaza area to have some dinner. James had pizza, I had vegetable paella and we split a cinnamon/sugar crepe for dessert. Our server was very friendly and spoke some English- so far I havent felt like a total fish out of water for not speaking Spanish. We also scored some live entertainment when a martial arts group decided to perform in the plaza. Then we headed back to the hotel after what turned out to be an action packed 8 hours.
hey ! It's Simon.. can't believe you guys were in Valencia.. it's only an hour drive from my folks house.. bummer. they would have served you guys lots of local food and lots of red wine! maybe next time.
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