Valencia Walking Tour

We ventured out on a city walking tour fully expecting rain, but were pleasantly surprised.  The weather FINALLY appears to have turned some, it was partly sunny much of the day and we sadly abandoned our belief that we had somehow found our way back to Seattle.  Valencia is beautiful, with both ancient roman and modern (18th century) sites, some of which are captured below.  What isn't captured here are photos of the "Silk Exchange" - called that because Valencia is a city known for its silk (who knew?), but no silk was actually traded in the building - it was a place where business was conducted, from contracts and banking (due to the silk trade), to jails and celebrations. Basically, it was a building where money changed hands, people were punished or celebrated, and oh, there was a prayer room that accommodated the Catholics, Jews and Muslims who for a certain period of time, lived in harmony in this beautiful city.  Just a few of the photos follow:

 City Central Square and Cathedral, with Neptune in the middle of the fountain,
surrounded by the beautiful ladies.

 City Hall on the right, with one of the many fountains.  Also,
note the bell tower - Valencia is filled with them - more than 300 in fact.

 A typical Valencian breakfast, a sweet roll (called Fartons Polo) that is dipped in "horchata," a 

drink made from fermented nuts, non-alcoholic.  Very sweet, and although it's

not something we would go out of the way to find, we're glad we gave it a try.

 Board describing how to dip the sweet sticks into the drink

Porcelain Museum, though not entirely visible, the doorway
is flanked by alabaster statues intended to symbolize the two rivers that
run through Valencia.

Spain - the unplanned trip

For those who know us well, the planning for our trips is a thing of legend (in our own minds).  Plane tickets almost a year in advance, hotels selected and ferry tickets 6 months in advance, all summarized in a detailed itinerary with carefully spaced lines, equidistant - pure Type A Beauty!  The combination of moving to Texas on short notice and deciding to squeeze a trip to Spain left us planless.  I personally had concerns on how we would deal with it, but so far so great.  We arrived in Barcelona and had two great days.  Went to the Picasso museum and explored the town.  (Mark will share his thoughts on Picasso some other time.)  The second highlight was a 90 minute self-guided walking tour.  We downloaded the audio to our phone and found it much better than being part of a large group.  And finally, our evening tapas tour - too much fun!

After a couple days in Barcelona, we hopped a train to Valencia, a beach town about 3 hours down the coast.  Our goal was to relax and enjoy the sun, unfortunately for a city that publicizes 330 days a sun per year, we have not seen much in our first two days.  It has not deterred us though, we explored the city and had a great Paella cooking class.  Valencia claims to be the home of Paella and the class was great.  We have 3 more days here and then back to Barcelona for a few days before we fly home to TEXAS.  I will admit it was hard, when people asked where we were from, we would start to say California and correct it to Texas, photos below.

Anne on the walking tour in the center of Barcelona, notice the pigeons, 

similar to Trafalgar's Square in London.

 One of the stops on the tapas tour, local

pub pouring their version of hard apple cider - they claim

pouring from on-high improves the taste due to aeration...

 Preparation of local chorizo, cooked by burning with alcohol

Potato, peppers and octopus tapas

Our guide demonstrating how to bring the local equivalent of champagne, 

it was a communal drinking event, we watched closely - no lips touched the vessel

 Valencia market, largest and Europe and cleanest we have been in

 Teacher of our Paella class, very knowledgeable and funny - that's rabbit and chicken in the paella pan - traditional Valencia Paella

Anne with the final product

Lokrum Island - our last day

We are on our last day in Dubrovnik and fly out this evening.  We took a quick boat ride over to Lokrum Island, home to free range peacocks and bunnies - picturesque areas and ruins that were used for more game of thrones scenes, specifically the gardens.  Great last day in Croatia - we're flying to London, staying the night, then home sweet home...

 Called the "Dead Sea" on the island, small pool that was salt water

 Peacocks were all over the island

 Old Castle

 Botanical Gardens had some unique cactus

 Monastery

 Hike to the top of the island

View of Dubrovnik on ride back to the city

St. Blaise - this one is for John and Mark

So, what do John, Mark and Dubrovnik have in common?  Well, St. Blaise of course.  St Blaise is the name of the school that John and Mark attended from 1st through 8th grades and also happens to be the patron saint of Dubrovnik - there are 37 statues of St Blaise within its city walls. For Catholics and Non-Catholics, St Blaise is the healer of the throats - and I can't recall the story of how that came to be, and it really has nothing to do with Dubrovnik anyway.  The relevance of St Blaise for Dubrovnik residents, whose biggest celebration aside from Christmas and Easter is St Blaise day, is that St Blaise apparently saved the city from enemy attack.  The story goes that in 972 AD, the Mayor of Dubrovnik (at that time, the town was called Ragusa) had a dream in which St. Blaise warned him of an impending attack by enemies.  The Mayor woke the town and prepared for battle, and because of the warning, the town successfully defended itself against the Venetians...so for more than 1,000 years, every February 3, the town celebrates St Blaise - with a festival, period costumes, music, and pageantry.

Above: Dubrovnik Cathedral, with St Blaise on top...see below for close up.

Above: one of the 37 St Blaise statues in town, this one is on top of the cathedral - St Blaise holds a replica of the city of Dubrovnik in his left hand and points up with his right.

This has nothing to do with St Blaise, but it is representative of the many drain spouts around town - when it's raining, excess water from the rooftops comes down the inside of the buildings through drains and exits through these fanciful drain spouts

GOT Cruise and Walking Tour

We had a fun Game of Thrones tour that began with a nice sail around the Dubrovnik bay  - so that we could take in the entire city...beautiful, and ended with a 1/2 walking tour of some of the GOT sites.  Our guide kept us entertained, filled us in on the local gossip related to the filming.  A few film facts: the filming is no longer in Dubrovnik, but they had a good run from 2011 to 2017; the cast and crew initially were friendly and milled about the city just like any tourists, but as their fame grew - their presence did not - and eventually, they just hid from everyone; the extras played by Dubrovnik residents earned around 50 Euro a day - and were on set from 430 AM to well after sunset - the perk was the catered food; and each scene was filmed around 30 times - because there is no stage set and they cannot easily go back to the spot they were filming.  Apparently, the crew left Dubrovnik because of the expense and the tourists - both problematic. Season 8 was filmed in Spain and their Ireland studio.   Photos below of the actual scene and a snippet from the show for comparisons.

Our ship around the bay, a replica of the ships that were made in Dubrovnik up until the 1600s, when an earthquake struck Dubrovnik and destroyed the shipyard - that was the end of the Dubrovnik shipbuilders.

Above: Walk of shame steps - where the below shot from GOT was filmed.

Above: Walk of shame scene from GOT.  Notice the church in the background does not exist in the actual location (two photos above), the guide explained that the area above the staircase had a green screen across it, so that the church in the background could be photoshopped in.  Our guide explained that the items thrown at Cersci Lannister were actually sponges (plentiful here in the Adriatic), dipped in brown stuff. 

Above: Actual location just inside the Dubrovnik city walls. 

Above: Scene of Joffrey arriving at King's Landing - where the townspeople rioted.

Fort of St. Lawrence

In the morning shots, there was a fortress on the other side of a small bay in many of the photos.  We visited it today which allowed us to get an expansive view of the city (aka "money shot").   Another great day for photos.   While grabbing  late lunch, we got the opportunity to see the cliff divers - quite brave.  Looking forward to the tour tonight where we do a brief cruise around the outside of the city.

Spectacular Dubrovnik

We arrived very late by ferry in Dubrovnik, and did not make it out to the city last night.  But we were up with the sun to walk the city wall.  This is the number one attraction -  walking the wall that encases this beautiful old town -  we read that it can be very crowded and turn into a lemming line-up, thus the reason we beat feet very early.  Apparently there are limited cruise ships in town today and we were fortunate, there were no lemming sightings - this must be what it feels like to go to an amusement park which is only half full - no waiting in long lines.  We have also been fortunate with the weather.  Rain has been predicted all week, but not a cloud in sight and the forecast has vastly improved to reasonable temperatures without precipitation.  We'll share what we learn from our GOT tour later tonight.  Just some shots of Old Town Dubrovnik - notice the majority of roofs are new - lots of bombing here during the 1990s war.