Our flight was on Friday morning 5:30 AM, so we left for Madrid late Thursday night on the bus. We arrived in Madrid at about midnight and spent the rest of the night sitting at a table in the Madrid airport waiting for the gate to open. Had I known, I would have brought a blanket or a sleeping bag, as everybody else staying overnight in the airport was sleeping on the floor.
Our flight to Valencia was short. We caught a taxi to the hotel, and as soon as we got into our room, we all decided to nap for a couple of hours. After waking up, we caught the bus to the center of the city. Riding the bus was reminiscent of Seattle, but their system in Valencia is much better. There are screens in the bus that say what the next destination is and when the expected arrival is. They break it up with commercials and ads which help to finance the buses though. Also, at the bus stops, they have digital signs that tell you when the next bus is and what route # it is. Convenient!
We stopped at a plaza (I can't remember the name- something to do with 'Reina'). After walking around, we sat down at a restaurant for some delicious and traditional paella- supposedly Valencia is the birthplace of paella. Also, we ordered a side of patatas bravas- which are always amazing. Lindsay and I had paella valenciana which had rabbit and chicken in it while Luiza had paella marisco which was just shellfish. I actually liked Luiza's more although the rabbit had an interesting flavor.
After a long lunch, we walked to a church on the side of the plaza. It had a neat model outside of it with a long explanation in braille. We also walked around to the other buidlings of the church.
There was a fountain back behind the church in a different plaza...
Some street views of Valencia
On the far side of the first plaza, we ran across this very large ice cream place. They had well over 50 flavors- everything common as well as mango, cinnamon, coconut, after-eights, gummi bear, etc. It was so hot that I couldn't really eat anything too sweet, so I settled for another scoop of coconut ice cream. I can't say it was as good as the one in Tordesillas, but it was definitely refreshing. Yum!
Later that day, we headed to the beach for the afternoon and went swimming. Later, we ordered pizza from an Italian restaurant and picked up some extra snacks from the grocery store before crashing.
On Saturday, we headed across the river in the hot weather to the City of Arts and Sciences. It's this whole complex full of interesting architecture. It has a science museum, aquarium, IMAX theater, and opera house. We decided to go the aquarium first which turned out to be a terrible choice. The ticket lines at the aquarium were extremely long, and there was no shade to hide under. Lindsay, Luiza, and I were all miserable, and I was getting a great sunburn from standing there. After what seemed like forever, they finally opened up another line where I was fortunate enough to find shade. Finally, we were allowed to go into the aquarium.
After watching the seals for a while, we were extremely thirsty. We found and bought slushies which were delicious and very sugary.
We finished up the aquarium with the beluga whale who was extremely cute.
We grabbed some burgers just after that, and we made our way to a dolphin show. I don't think I've seen a dolphin show since I went to MarineWorld when I was in the 4th grade. Anyways, the other Lindsay was really disappointed that we didn't get seats in the splash zone.
After the dolphin show, we headed over the the science museum. It's a very interactive museum- probably somewhat comparable to Seattle's science center but much cooler. First they had a Focault's Pendulum (34 m tall- one of the largest in the world)
Then, they had a large artistic representation of DNA
On another floor, they had a chromosome forest which was pretty cool. Each chromosome had information about what it does, what defects can happen, etc. Very cool.
After that, we went the the Hemispheric- the IMAX theater to watch a movie about the coral reefs. It was narrated by Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet- very weird. We also got to wear these amazing head/earphone things.
Finally, we finished the day at the beach again. The water was so warm there and the waves were so small that it was really nice to swim. We were there until after sunset, which of course, was pretty to watch.
Sunday morning, we woke up early, caught our flight back to Madrid at 6:30, and finally arrived in Salamanca sometime around 2:00 PM. I have to admit that I still liked Aveiro more than Valencia- I can't say if it's due to the weather or the town. However, Valencia was a great experience, and I'm glad I skipped seeing another castle to travel across Spain.
