Around Valencia in 48 hours

Ok, before anything else: grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I just spent an hour behind the university computer to upload a zillion pictures of last weekend - which was great, by the way, see below - and the computer gave an error and I lost everything - everything! I truly don´t have the patiente right now to upload all those pictures again, so I will do that some other time, but here´s the text:


This weekend my boyfriend Kobe came to visit me again here in Valencia, together with his father and brother. I can’t even begin to describe how good it is to see Kobe again after more than 2 months apart! I won’t bore you with my declarations of love though, and instead tell you what we’ve been up to these last 48 hours! Because 48 hours was the exact duration of their visit, from 3pm, Friday afternoon, until 3 pm this Sunday afternoon, and yet we managed to see all of Valencia’s highlights!

After settling Kobe’s father and brother into a hotel nearby (NH Ciudad de Valencia, they were very satisfied, I’d recommend it were it not for its less than ideal location for a city trip – we chose this hotel because it was near my apartment, which is not at all near the historical city centre, but that aside), we walked to the America’s Cup Port, enjoying the last rays of sun, to see the piers and the miniature sailing boats. Then we took a bus to the city centre and had a refreshing horchata in the Mercado Colón, with a farton to ease the first signs of hunger. Have I told you already what horchata is? It’s a drink very typical of Valencia, made of ‘chufas’, a kind of root that grows in the earth like potatoes, out which a milky fluid is pressed. It tastes a bit like milk with cinnamon and nuts. With a glass of fresh horchata, you eat fartons, which is a typical pastry that you have to dip into the horchata.

They were putting up the Christmas decorations in the Mercado! But apparently they were having some electricity problems, because the lights went on and off. I bet Mercado Colón will be lovely when the decorations are finished! We didn’t linger around to see that though, and proceeded to the city centre for an evening walk. When we arrived on Plaza de Ayuntamiento, we stumbled upon a huge tent with a line of people waiting in front of it. I asked two elderly ladies what they were waiting for, and they told me that inside was a big Christmas stall. So we got in line to see the biggest Christmas stall in Spain, very beautiful and wondrously detailed! A pity we weren’t allowed to take pictures, else I’d show you some of the over 2000 clay figures in the stall!

After a short walk to see Plaza de la Reina and Plaza de la Virgen by night, we had a tapas dinner at restaurant Vintara. I’ve taken about all my visitors there, and should you ever come to Valencia, I recommend it!

On Saturday morning, we got up in time to make the most of the daylight which isn’t as abundant as I thought it would be here in the south. We visited the Mercado Central and bought a kilo and a half of mandarins for little more than a Euro! Mandarins and oranges are Valencia’s agricultural specialty, you see them growing everywhere, even in the city! We also bought Serrano ham and Manchego cheese, also Spanish specialties. What’s great in the Mercado Central is that you can have everything vacuum packed, ideal for aerial transportation. It’s all a matter of combining tradition with excellent customer service.
Afterwards we visited la Lonja, la Plaza Redonda, the Cathedral and the Miguelet tower with it’s magnificent view over the city, the Torres de Serranos… all the faithful blogreaders will know by now what I’m talking about! After a sandwich in the shadow of the cathedral tower – a potato tortilla sandwich or a calamares sandwich in my case – we walked along Turia park, with some pit stops to consume most of the kilo and a half of mandarins we’d bought earlier, and to have some fun making green mandarins dance in fountains… to have a cup of coffee in the Palau de la Musica… and to play on the giant Gulliver! (At least the ones of us that didn’t consider themselves too grown up for that- check the picture!) We walked from the city centre up until the very end of the park near the sea, where Ciudad de las Artes y de las Ciencias is. That’s quite a walk, about 4 kilometres. Added up with some kilometres more in the city centre and the 207 steps of the cathedral tower, we had burned quite some calories in the course of one day! Time to replace those calories with an aperitive on Plaza Negrita and another tapas dinner!
On Sunday morning, we visited the ceramics museum in the palácio del Marqués de Dos Aguas. Unfortunately, the ceramic pieces of Picasso I was so proud to show them were gone to another exposition! We conluded the visit with another fresh horchata and farton in one of the oldest horchaterias in town, the horchateria Santa Catalina. And then it was time to get back to the airport… and that’s how you see Valencia in 48 hours!

After saying goodbye, I went back home, sobbed a bit, had a green tea in my favourite café, and got an invitation from Lena to go to a medieval market in Plaza de Toros. I got quite curious, so I took the metro back to the city centre to explore this medieval market with her. It turned out to be this big event with traditional music, acrobats, belly dancers, fake tortures of fake prisoners (iek!) and lots of little stalls selling things to eat and drink, herbs, spices, jewellery, and so on, and all of that inside the Plaza de Toros, the bullfight arena which I had longed to see from the inside without having to witness an innocent animal getting killed! I had a great pancake with leek, eggs and cheese! I’m going to try to make it myself someday and if it works, I’ll give you the recipe. Anyway, it was great to see Lena and discover this market, to get my mind of the sadness of yet another goodbye – and to conclude a great weekend!