3/6/26 An interesting day

 

        After a hectic few days it was decided we needed a break , so ended up with a day at the beach , getting sand castles built & destroyed , lot's of splashing and some swimming , a walk up the beach , lunch under our umbrella's ( supplied by the apartment ) .  It doesn't look like there's a lot of people here , but that's not correct - there are thousands , the beach stretches for 4 kilometres !!! Then there's the permanent umbrellas that always seem to fill up on their hired lounges & shade . While there are lot's of people on the beach , there are as many out in the water as. I walked up for about 1& a half kilometres and was constantly amazed by how many thousands of people that were here - not as crowded as Bondi Beach in Summer , but more people on one beach than we'd ever seen before !!

  We did give Tapas another try while we were in the city the other day , and I can report it was much more authentic and tasty . We dined in a smaller restaurant in the old city , so that proved the difference between the mass produced version of the the beach esplanade . We left feeling we had experienced something quite nice . We also dined out another evening on the esplanade - at a different restaurant this time though - and had a very nice Paella . Interesting , we chose to sit inside the restaurant rather than outside - it was cheaper to sit inside !!

    Here's some more photo's from Gulliver's Park from the observation tower .

Some of my photo bombers , looking pretty happy with themselves as well 🤣

Beware the sneaky photo's that appear when you leave the camera unattended 😉

    Justin hired us some bikes , so we rode into the city and up to the markets . There are bike tracks everywhere here , some are beside the traffic , but there's a lot that are completely away from it . This section we rode through is called Turia Park and snakes it way through the city , and is extremely well used - cycling is a really easy way to get around Valencia , and is a way of life for the locals .

The park goes beside the Science centre etc 

We arrived at Gulliver's Park again , so Isla decided another play would be in order . While she did , I went for another ride around to get some more photos .

      If you haven't guessed yet , I am still amazed at the architecture . After a few kilometres I came back to Gulliver's Park for a rest stop before we headed further up & into the city . Now , the main purpose for going into the city was to get some dried fruit & nuts from the central markets - we rode away with several kilo's of dried fruit & nuts !! Dried pineapple rings , dried strawberries and dried mango , some roasted macadamias and some almonds . All purchased at this stall .

There are all types of stalls here , from fresh fruit & vegetables to fresh fish and anything aquatic haha , bags of snails and many others . Fresh fruit is always nice , as were the Empinadas we had for lunch .

    Must say , riding through the crowded city streets was much easier than walking them . Before long we had arrived back to Turia Park for the less crowded section of the ride . There are soccer grounds , rose gardens , lawns , croquet clubs , gardens & more in the park . It was a river/creek at some stage of its life , but has been piped through and converted to parkland and space for the people to use . We found a large concrete area to ride around in , Isla requested that I chased her , so as any willing grand parent would do , I obliged . We cruised round & round enjoying the moment until we struck a section of glass panels that were in the concrete - used for lighting up the underside of the road bridge above . It was nearly synchronised , Isla's front wheel went out from under her , I looked back at her and I was in exactly the same predicament - on my butt on the ground . I quickly went over to check on her , but she was okay with a few scratches . I on the other hand , was bleeding from near my elbow and some skin off my left knee in 3 places , so we had a good laugh about it as Justin had just arrived to see what the commotion was about . It was all superficial , looking worse than it actually was . We picked ourselves up , dusted ourselves off and resumed our ride toward home , stopping for a quick play on Gulliver again . It was a source of entertainment for Isla and I for the rest of the afternoon , wondering what Nan would think when we walked / hobbled through the door into the apartment - the look was priceless !! 

    After 8 interesting days in Valencia , we started to pack ready for our day of travel tomorrow , back to Woking and the decidedly cooler wet weather .  Here's a map link :- https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1_3PdfX0MF7umKb9Riici3jV_y3_zLB4&usp=sharing

1/6/26 Gulliver & the city

 

    Here's an interesting park along the way into the city . I'm assuming you know Gulliver's Travels ??? , well Gulliver woke to find he'd been tied down by tiny people - this is a park based on that premise his hat and sword are off to the sides and his shoe is missing . This is a picture of the basis for the park .

And this is the giant version of that , here's his head and one hand & arm - kids can climb and slide and play all over him !! He's made of fibreglass and does get a little hot . There's steps , ropes and slides all around - you can see a viewing tower in the photo - top left , which is 3 storeys high . Check out the map view at the end .

Some interesting gargoyles ??? at one of the road bridges .

     There are 2 sets of old city gates in Valencia , here's one of them , as well as the bridge to approach them .

    Just as we got near the gate , there was protest march coming along the street , we stood back and waited and watched to see what was happening . Police cars , motorbikes and vans were escorting them every inch of the way , keeping them out of harms way - or something like that .

This was the entryway into the old city .

There are some amazing old doors around the city , all made of oak - must have been the most available timber .

Some more street art

And another doorway

More artworks

And tiling

More compact housing 

Back to the apartment and the jacaranda's now covering parts of the street .

   Here's the all important map link :- https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=19TJ9xTHTF1IrIimELXys_azr_yATT0s&usp=sharing

30/5/26 Valencia Silk Exchange

 

     Today we ventured into the old city area for a look around , first stop was the Silk Exchange , where traders have been buying & selling produce for hundreds of years 

                                 Massive doors each end of the building are impressive 

     We admired all of this with all of these other people who had the same idea .

      The spiral columns support the roof structure , with chandeliers hanging down , and marble floors .

          This is a shot of one of the panels in the ceiling of another room - plenty of work in them as well.

    That same room has these window shutter doors - all solid oak , and the 3d effect floor tiling 

    In this room beside the main hall was another amazing piece of work - this is also a ceiling . There are so many different patterns , faces , animals etc - incredible how much detail is in it !

Here's a shot to put it into some perspective , you can get a feeling for size with the people at the bottom  of the photo .

     Here's a closer view of the ceiling.

Some more street art as we wander around - interesting way to camouflage an electrical box .

                           

             Here's some of the streetscapes , with plenty of small restaurants & bars using the space available .

Plenty of buildings have some great feature tiles on them as well .

     Okay time for a map link :- https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1KjrOV7ZhiSgrMGM0CBCIDOFtxAdyoCk&usp=sharing

29/5/26 Valencia Oceanographic

 

   Today Isla was extra excited , we are going to Oceanographic , right beside the science centre , but so much more to see & look at . Here's a photo of them .

    There are millions of fish swimming around in the tanks and exhibits - these are Scorpion Fish - definitely not the prettiest .

     These are Giant Spider Crabs and they can move pretty fast , they're about 400mm across - one would make a decent feed !!!

    Ironically we've travelled half way round the world to check out these King Penguins from Antarctica !!

    One of the highlights for us was the Beluga Whales , unfortunately for you , they didn't photograph very well , so don't get an appearance here Sorry ! , We probably only saw about one third of the Oceanographic displays today , the place is massive . One other exhibit we went to was the shark exhibit , where there were plenty of sharks floating around , with turtles and another surprise - there were several swordfish - over 3m in length !

     Now for a change in scenery , some street art on the way to or from the beach .

    We decided to eat out after another big day out , having tapas down at a restaurant on the esplanade . We left the restaurant feeling a little like cattle going through a feedlot - we were there , ate & paid , but didn't seem to be authentic or have a lot of taste . More to come 😉

28/5/26 Valencia Science Museum

 

   Today we head to the Science Museum and all that magnificent architecture on the sites around it . We had a bus ride that dropped us about 500m walk away , then we wandered across , passed through this fountain which conveniently sprayed above us as we walked through the fountain .

 Beside the Science Center , was this large blue shell?? , which is the L'Agora - a museum , beside it was this giant curved mast with cables coming off it - it's actually the support for a 6 lane road bridge over the parkland below .

       Science Center is straight ahead , on the left is an arched garden which hides the carpark below .

     This is looking toward Hemispheric , then the larger building behind is Palau de Le Arts - performing arts centre . Both very imposing buildings !!

Here's that garden over the carpark.

The Hemispheric , performing arts centre and science centre are all surrounding by massive ponds about 1m deep 

    Inside the science centre was a drawcard for Isla and Justin , we walked around and looked at lots of different exhibits from the human genome right up to the International Space Station . The inside has 5 of these trees , which support all of the roof , amazing stuff .

    With the day taken up with wandering through here , we caught another bus home & had some dinner before heading down to the beach again . That's the joy of sunset at 9:20pm . Temperatures are generally up to 30-32 in the city , and about 5 degrees cooler at the beach . Even at 9pm it was still a pleasant 27 degrees . Stay tuned for more .