Last stop before home - Valencia

Wednesday 14th October

Up early in the mist and rain to drive to Valencia, to drop off the hire car. Valencia is the last place to visit before we catch the train to Barcelona airport tomorrow and fly home.

Ewan had done a great of booking a very modern apartment (through Valencia Flats) for a very cheap price. Then we discovered that officially the high season ended yesterday so that explained the good deal.

So we wandered around map in hand trying to make sure we see the highlights of Valencia. It certainly had some magnificent buildings mostly built in the early 1900s, some with a distinctive art nouveau style. The post office,  built in 1922, is enormous and bears no resemblance to any Australia Post building I can remember!

We are staying in the oldest part of town: narrow streets,  brightly coloured houses,  lots of flower pots and plenty of graffiti. Some of the graffiti is fantastic, and very skilful. 

Ewan was delighted to discover a tower - the Migulete - that needed climbing so off he went to ascend the 207 steps and to take some photos. Meanwhile I resisted the opportunity to visit a nearby chocolateria (such willpower! ) and did some shopping.

It was obvious that there  was a cruise ship in town as we kept running into large tour groups following the same flags and listening attentively to every word. The souvenir shops were impossible to get into and we heard just about every language except Spanish at some of the tourist sights!  Today there was none and we didn't see any cruise ships when we visited the port.

Although it was a bit drizzly we managed to see some of the main sights, and check out some of the shops.  Most of them are exactly the same as those now in Melbourne except the prices are dearer. Spanish fashion tends to be just a bit too shiny, golden and frilly,  although some of the winter coats were tempting.

After the driving and trudging around,  and a G&T of course,  we decided to try and buy some take away. Ewan did a reconnaissance trip and reported a sushi place about two minutes away.  It was a tiny place with only a few tables but we had some delicious fresh sushi,  a nice change from all of the tapas I have to admit!

In reading about Valencia it was clear that one of the highlights is a complex of new performing arts and science buildings built on reclaimed swamp. As the sun was shining (and my leg wasn't good! ) we decided to hire bikes so we could ride along the extensive Park created when the river was rerouted and the swamp drained.

My first attempt ended in disaster when I miscalculated a step about ten metres from the bike shop! After attending to the grazes on my knee, and thanking the kind passersby who helped me up, we set off with bike number 2! 

For the rest of the day we rode around the long green park as far as the port and the beaches, past the old town walls and under lots of bridges. We spent some time having a look at the amazing architecture of the complex known as the Ciudad de Las Artes y Las Ciencias (City of the Arts and Sciences). It consists of buildings for music and  performing arts,  an Oceanarium, a science museum,  an Imax theatre called the Hemispheric, a sculpture exhibition space and several other buildings of uncertain function! 

As you can see from the photos it is a very beautiful white shining complex primarily clad in white gloss mosaic ceramic tiles. Lots of wonderful shapes and curves, and surrounded by shallow blue pools ( which a guy dressed in waders was busily cleaning! ).

An exhibition of sculpture was just being dismantled when we were there so I quickly took some photos as it was beautiful. Then I realised that the sculptor himself was there, probably to check that the workmen didn't ruin his work! 

We decided against actually visiting the science museum or the Oceanarium as it was a beautiful  sunny day, so we pedalled on to check out the beaches,  which had very clean golden sand.  The busy port was looking a bit decrepit as lots of the buildings erected for the Americas Cup in 2007 had seen better days.  The original port buildings were tiled and wooden and very decorative.

Cycling there and back was about enough pedalling for me so Ewan went off for a ride around town whilst I tended to my injuries.

For our last meal we were not very adventurous: Ewan had vegetarian moussaka! I decided to try one of the local specialties called fideua, which is basically made with fine noodles instead  of rice. It was marinara and the fish stock was delicious. 

Thursday 15th October

It's officially time to leave so I am writing this sitting in the Valencia train station. It's a very beautiful art nouveau designed station. In an hour we will catch the train to Barcelona where we  started our trip nine weeks ago. Then it's 25 hours ( with probably not much sleep) to get home. This is the worst part of the trip I think - the tedious hours of sitting on a train and plane.  On the other hand I am looking forward to seeing the girls and family and friends.

Spain has been a wonderful holiday: not expensive,  very friendly people, endlessly interesting and fabulous food.  What more could you ask for??

Your returning correspondent

Dianne

On the road to home

Monday 12th October

Happy Christopher Columbus day! Today is a Public holiday celebrating the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. Lots of people out and about and enjoying their day off.

Before we came to Spain I did some preparatory reading to make myself familiar with the story of Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes. Today we travelled through La Mancha Country and Ewan had worked out a trail where we would see lots of old windmills.  These feature heavily in Don Quixote as he imagines they are giants and attacks them (unsuccessfully! ) with his long wooden staff.

We saw many in rows along the tops of hills, not unlike the locations of the more recent wind turbines. They apart to be static and no longer in use,  but every town seems to have a statue of Don Quixote so it seems they have been preserved to  prolong the myth. Probably their original function of milling grain has been well and truly superseded by modern methods.

In one town there was a number of them clustered together and you can get very close to them. Very popular with visitors.

We traveled through flat, dry, brown, rocky countryside initially until gradually it became more hilly and green.  All along the way there were acres of untethered grapevines,  and of course,  the inevitable olive trees.

Our destination, Cuenca, is famous for old houses that cling perilously to the tops of deep gorges. Some of them have been hanging over the edge for some centuries! 

After we located our hotel - a converted 17th century monastery which is definitely on terra firma - we found some food in the local Plaza and headed off to find the best views of the famous houses. 

Ewan had done a great job of booking a hotel which was not far as the crow flies from the houses. But it required a lot of climbing down multiple sets of stairs to get to one of the rivers that surrounds the houses,  and then to climb up again to cross a bridge which spanned the gorge. Our knees and sore legs were protesting but we were determined to be good tourists,  even though it started to drizzle with rain!

There are some great Museums here and a couple which have contemporary art,  but as it is a Public holiday nothing was open.  Damn!

Just as we were returning to the hotel a huge bus with a bicycle trailer managed to squeeze itself into the main square,  and without killing any tourists snapping selfies of themselves in front of the Cathedral. Truly remarkable!

We had a chat to one of the cyclists and they are cycling from Valencia to Paris to promote environmental causes. Ewan was suitably impressed.

Tomorrow is our last day of travelling as we will reach Valencia - and all those oranges!  The hire car will be returned and we will spend the last couple of days enjoying ourselves in Valencia before flying home on Thursday.

Hard to believe we have been away for 9 weeks! 

Your satisfied correspondent

Dianne

More adventures in Cordoba. .......

After a reviving siesta,  it was off to see a show at the Royal Stables - a mixture of flamenco and performances by highly trained Andalusian horses.  It was held in a large arena, and was very dramatic with music,  lights and load of action. The horses and riders worked very hard,  but I do wonder about the life the horses lead as I'm sure the training would be arduous.  Not great photos but you'll get the idea!!

It would be very remiss off me to not mention the famous Patios of Cordoba.  The Patios refers to the windowboxes and pot plants used to decorate the white walls and houses in the old town.  During the day we had admired many of them as we wandered around.  In May they have a serious competition to find the best one,  and some of the previous winners proudly display their plaques.  Autumn is not the best time for them,  but we still saw many that added colour to the plain white walls.

This morning before we left we had two museums to tick of our list.

The first was a Flamenco Museum which we both found very intriguing. We tried our hand at keeping the beat on some audio visual percussion boxes and enjoyed some old footage of flamenco dancers at the beginning of last century.  A short film about the making of flamenco guitars was fascinating and there was a lot of information and music about styles and masters of flamenco. We had to drag pallets away.

Next was the Museum which is a tribute to Julio Romero de Torres a famous painter.  The extensive exhibition of paintings were displayed in his house complete with frescoes. He was highly skilled and painted some superb realist paintings of women. Very beautiful.

Before we headed off down the highway we went in search of a Churreria which we had passed on our way to the Museums with a huge queue of people lining up to buy  hot churros for Sunday breakfast.  To my horror, as I entered the shop, the huge owner shook his head and told me they were just closed! What dreadful timing!  

I asked him if I could take a photo of his menu as the only thing they sell is churros with, or without, chocolate. I must have looked so disappointed that he beckoned me over and gave me a few churros in a huge cone of paper for free!  They were crisp and just enough. If we'd had a whole cone full of them we would have been sick!

Farewelling Cordoba we headed down the road  for a couple of hours to to Amargo.  It's distinguishing feature is that it is on the way back to Barcelona,  and only a couple of hours drive.
Gloria took us along the back roads again but this time the roads were of exceptional quality,  relatively new and basically devoid of any vehicles at all!  Very odd indeed.

Given the hectic tourist pace of the last few days we were both hoping there was absolutely nothing to see here so we could relax.  The apartment Ewan had booked is in the old part of town, but there is only  a couple of blocks of it.  If you take out the churches,  then the old theatre and some rickety 16th Century buildings surrounding the Plaza Mayor is it.  Thank God! Being a tourist can be exhausting!

We did a circuit of the old town and avoided going into any of the three churches.  After a siesta we went back to the Plaza and had some very tasty tapas -well raciones (large tapas) for dinner followed by a quiet night. 

More traveling tomorrow as we had for Cuenca. 

Your revived correspondent

Dianne