When we first arrived in Valencia, we purchased a group tour so, at some point, we would get out of the city for a change of scenery.  Meeting downtown in the town hall square, we had time for a quick coffee and goodie before we were introduced to our tour guide for the day and boarded a comfortable and most importantly, air conditioned bus.  Our final destination was the city of Gandia, about 30 miles south of Valencia and home of the Borgia family and their castle.  Before we arrived there, however, we had a stop in the quaint town of  Simat de la Valldigna to view a beautiful old monastery and the surrounding ruins of what must have been a beautiful structure in the 14th century.  It was set in a very fertile valley, surrounded by sloping mountains, and a light haze blanketed and settled over the whole area.  After some time there, we were disappointed to not have free time to roam the streets of the town. I would have loved to explore the local eatery where the locals were enjoying a mid-morning coffee and old men sat in their wobbly chairs simply sitting and watching the world go by.   But as most tours go, we were rushed off to our next stop, Gandia.

The journey to these towns was interesting, to say the least. Joey and I sat in the second row of the bus and the two people in front of us were not interested in the countryside but in each other and chatted loudly the whole trip.  We heard their whole life story. I commented that it was like listening to two people on a first date and trying to best each other.  They had been everywhere, seen everything, been with many partners each and tried to outtalk each other.  There’s one in every group! She did, however, speak fluent English and Spanish so was a big help in interpreting for our driver when needed.  There were also the loud Italians directly across from us but they quieted down once we were on the road.  As far a the rest of our crew, we didn’t get to know them until later.

Our next stop was Gandia where we visited the Borgia castle but first, we had a little dissension in our ranks. We had a mutiny!  One of our members, the lady that sat in front of us on the bus, decided she didn’t like the place we were to stop for coffee and took off.  The tour guide was in a bad position as she needed to look after all of us but wanted to go after our wayward sheep. So, we wasted our coffee time figuring out what to do. Our guide finally decided to phone another tour guide to take us to our next destination while she went looking for the lady.  She managed to find her and tell her where we’d be for lunch so she could meet us and when we got to the restaurant, unfortunately, so did she.  None of us were very happy with her and her childish behavior. A very strange lady indeed!  Lunch was another story.  The salad was delicious but we had no choice in our main course and it was a pasta dish with a very strong flavor of fish topped with one large shrimp, head and all, and one lonely clam.  I looked around the table when we were finished and all the men had finished their plates and none of the women had.  I only had about four bites as that’s all I could get down and Joey ate about 1/2 of hers.  We were told the dessert was a flan but when it arrived it was actually creme caramel.  Coffee and wine rounded out the meal.  The best part of lunch was getting know a few more people in our group.

Helen and Paul were from London and were so much fun.  I commented that it was too bad we hadn’t met them sooner as we would have had a great time with them.  They were leaving in two days so won’t see them again.  Another young fellow was from London as well as a single lady from Tel Aviv and a lady from Cinque Terre, Italy  where we will be visiting next month.  Most people spoke English, or at least, enough to get by so it was fun chatting with everyone.

Next, our tour of the castle.  We were lead to a small tour kiosk and given little recorders that didn’t work well and told too much information for the time we had to explore.  The best part of the recorders was the VERY handsome man who handed them out.  I had to take a picture of him!

The castle, a five-story structure, was built in the 14 century and was very well preserved considering it had been abandoned for over a century.   Huge paintings hung everywhere and many rooms were covered with ornate tiled floors, some of them covered with plastic to help save them for many more years to come. Detailed, carved and gilded finials and moldings adorned the high ceilings showing the opulence of the time.  And of course, the doors!  I took so many pictures for my collection as some of them were the most spectacular I have seen.

One more cathedral rounded out our tour of Gandia.  Its unique feature was fourteen altars lining the outside walls of the church and the beautiful round window where I got an inspiration to make a wall hanging… when I get home.

Back on the bus, our driver was convinced to take us on a ride along the beach which was just as spectacular as the Malvarossa beach in Valencia.  The wind had come up making large waves that crashed on the sand and the water was an amazing blue color against the pure white sand.  We drove by huge rice fields where they grow a special rice for the paella that Spain is known for. I had never seen rice growing and was so surprised at how high it grows.  We were lucky to see a huge machine, not unlike our combines, harvesting the rice.  It had large wheels on the back but the front was like ski-doo runners for staying on top of the muck, we presumed.

We had a few good belly laughs on the way home.  We passed by a huge metal structure depicting a bull on top of a hill and I managed to snap a photo of it as we passed.  As I was putting my camera away, I said, “I was just shootin’ the bull”.  I thought Joey was going to fall off her seat laughing and Helen, sitting behind us, asked what I had said and when I told her, she told Paul and I could hear them laughing too.  The young fellow next to me asked me how much wine I had drunk with lunch which sent us off again.  It was too funny.  A little later, Joey said, “They’re combining”, and I answered her with “You saw Popeye”? as that’s what I heard her say.  Once again, we had a good laugh but a few minutes later she VERY distinctly and slowly said “These   are   market   garden  plots”.  She wasn’t going to let me misinterpret her again.  Doesn’t take much to get us laughing.

We had left at 8:30AM and we got back to our flat around 8 PM so it was a full day of walking and talking and laughing and we enjoyed almost every moment of it.