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