The Fraser Way 2014: Valencia Oct 11-14...the very old and the futuristic

We arrived in Valencia to the Pension Paris (a fourth flour walk up) in a great area to find that Vanessa had upgraded our room, so no shared toilet, yay! We were just hungry enough for a couple of tapas. Well, Blair said to the waitress "tapas" and then went in and picked out 2 plates but the waitress misunderstood as they had a set tapas menu, by the time we had finished we had 6 plates, luckily the waitress caught on before the 7th plate came. Tapas plates are not as big as at home so it wasn't quite as bad as it sounds and we didn't leave much on the plates :)

Entrance to the Pension Paris.

It's a good thing we do not have much luggage!

The first full day was indeed a FULL one, we started out thinking breakfast and a walk in the old town and did that. Valencia is an interesting city in that they have diverted the river that ran through the city and made it into a park as the river kept flooding the city, kind of like Winnipeg. So they have this wonderful park, running, walking and cycling track/paths.

Royal Gardens in Valencia.

Bottle tree in Royal gardens.

Close up of flowers on bottle tree.

We went across one of the beautiful bridges (that they have left) into the palace park, the actual palace is from the 13 th century is excavated so you can see where it was (why it isn't there is a long story) but the gardens have been maintained, so a beautiful Sunday morning walk.

Excavation of palace.

We also took in the City Museum, which essentially was a record of art in Valencia, prehistoric to modern, this time the building was a magnificent old house (palace, we think the home of the mayor at one time).

City museum entrance staircase.

View of dome over staircase.

Chapel of City Museum house, with cassocks.

After that Sharon got the big idea to walk down to the pier, beach and old Grand Prix track, then swing around at night to take in the futuristic buildings of Valencia. Well it was much further than it looked on the map so we felt like we were on one of our Camino days again, plus we got caught in a downpour at the beach, luckily there were plentiful bars and restaurants to take refuge in, so we had a pleasant beer and pizza till the storm passed over.

Storm coming in over beach.

Then we did walk back over the site of the Spanish Grand Prix and the failed Americas Cup site. We did end up at the amazing buildings of Valencia, that house the hemispheric, the Science Center and the Palace of the Arts. Very impressive especially at night.

Deserted old Spanish Grand Prix raceway.

Science Center with the Agora Convention Center in the background.

Palace of the arts, Valencia.

Our last day in Valencia was spent doing a little shopping and hitting the Market Square, this puts Granville Island and Kensington Market to shame, huge! FYI Valencia is about the size and population of Vancouver. We also walked the historic town as well as trying to find the Bio Parc (we never did find it in the maze of paths and levels leading to it) which again turned out to be a long walk but a nice cone of gelato made that all better. We have decided if we had to live in a city in Spain we think it would be Valencia, although we haven't seen Barcelona, the feel, convenience, proximity to beach, running paths, history all make it a very livable city.