Sun, 19 Oct 2003

author Tim	location Barcelona, España
posted 11:55 CEST 25/10/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/Espana ( all photos )

Valencia ( 20 photos )
One thing you usually don't get in a pension is a breakfast included, and this was no exception. So, the first mission for the day was to find a cheap breakfast somewhere.
The place was right near Plaza del Ayuntamiento, a triangular-shaped thing with a fountain in the middle, lined with pleasant if a little touristy shops. But on the whole, the city is far from over-touristed. I think we only saw one actual souviner shop the whole time.
Not too far north, we passed a few cafés before choosing one offering a cheap croissant and coffee deal. We sat down upstairs, with plenty of locals doing the same, just reading papers and doing not much at all. Liz ordered English Breakfast tea, which was actually real leaf tea in a strainer thingy, something very rare here where almost nobody drinks tea at all.
Further north, we passed L'Almonia, the heart of the Roman town of Valentia, where there are on-going excavations. Next door was Plaza de la Virgen, where hundereds of locals were gathering doing whatever it is that locals do on a Sunday morning in a Spanish square. Also, there was an area where people were madly swapping football cards, huge piles of them with about fifty people all wandering around trying to find that elusive player. Mums were even there with a printed list of the cards that little Hosé needs to finish the set off. It was all quite interesting - the Spanidards are truly fanatical about their football.
Next we crossed another interesting feature of Valencia - the old river-bed which once carried plenty of water through the city, now carries local kids playing football and a plethora of great gardens under the banner of Jardines del Turia.
Over one of the bridges which are no longer really required but most people use anyway, we located the tram station for a ride towards the beach. The port and beach area to the east of town are where the locals head in droves every lunchtime. If I had a three hour Siesta each day to sit and eat, I would do the same, so that's exactly what we intended to do this day.
We didn't have change to buy a ticket for the tram, so intended to buy one from the conductor onboard, but one never turned up. Just as well, since the first tram was the wrong direction anyway and we had to come back. We got off and walked a few minutes down to the beach, Playa de la Malvarrosa. Along this was a promenade of restaurants called the Paseo Marítimo. We took our time picking one, as there were so many all looking great. Eventually we followed our noses, sat down at a table facing the water and soaked in the atmosphere.
Our paella arrived, and we devoured it with great gusto. It's a great dish, so tasty and filling while still remaining quite healthy. Here, where the stuff was invented, was a great place to eat it, washed down with a couple of local beers and just watch the sea do its thing infront of us.
To settle that down, we took a walk out along the headland where some surfers were bravely battling the still-rough waters after the stormy days. Plenty of people were watching these two guys, but the best waves were breaking right onto the rocks infront of us where nobody dared to surf. However, the local cat population had set up house there, with about thirty cats and kittens all sitting on the rocks and occasionally running away from waves. Somebody appeared to have been feeding them, but they all looked pretty mangey.
We decided to walk back to town rather than get another tram, as it appeared to be quite direct. Short it wasn't however, and we spent a couple of hours pushing towards town, stopping only for an ice cream and some water. We crossed back over the Jardines del Turia "river" at Plaza de Zaragoza, where there were lots of gardens both above and below the "water line".
The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent trying to decypher Spanish and strangely enough German TV which was a novelty, not having seen it for so long. No dinner required after a lunch of that magnitude.
Jono and Penny rang us from Morella to find out where we were, and we told them the bad news about the buses. We agreed to meet up the next day back north in Vinaròs, and as such this was as far south as we were going to get in Spain.

(customised)