Category: Past Trips
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Fans Plus Three
I left off from my last blog just as we were headed out the door for the event that I wrote about a week ago that we bought tickets for. We were off to a soccer game at the Mestalla Stadium where the Valencia FC team were playing the Alaves, two Spanish teams in the same league. We boarded the Metro around 9pm thinking we were in plenty of time to beat the crowds but the doors opened and we barely got in. The noise level was already at a dull roar and we knew we were in for a night…
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Trip Within a Trip
No, we weren’t run over by a crazy driver, kidnapped or beamed up to an alien ship. We simply took a mini vacation from our vacation and headed to Mallorca, a small island about one hour east of Valencia. The night before leaving, Jocelyn went on line to check us in only to discover that the flight had been delayed four hours so we would be losing a lot of our first day in Palma de Mallorca, the capital. Leaving our flat on Tuesday morning, Joey had a bit of a slip on the stairs and fell on her behind…
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Oceans Alive
We had an amazing day today at the Oceanographic! Opened in 2002, the aquarium is the largest one in Europe housing thousands of types of fish and sea mammals as well as birds. Two 30 meter and 70 meter long, clear domed tunnels let us feel like we were in the tanks with the sharks, eels and other bright, colorful fish. All of the enclosures and habitats were large and gave the animals plenty of room to swim. Each area of the aquarium portrayed a different area of the world featuring its unique floral and fauna from the Medittereaean, the Red Sea, and the…
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The Wedding Crashers
I have always loved pouring over maps, following with my finger the many streets and avenues of a city, finding interesting places that I might like to visit. Last night the three of us did just that and made a plan to visit some of the places we found. Our first stop this morning was the old train station, Estacio del Nord. It’s massive wooden doors enticed us inside to see the beautiful mosaic ceilings and dazzling wooden columns. More wood framed the ticket offices that had probably seen thousands of travels pass by. Passing by a restaurant, we could enter…
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Sand and Sun
We have often commented on how tired we are at the end of the day and how little we did all day. We had another one of those today as we lolled on the beach from late morning until late afternoon, hardly getting up off our chairs except to people watch, each lunch and, for Jocelyn, swim in the clear warm ocean. She said she has been to and swam in many bodies of water but none as clean and clear as the ones off Malvarossa Beach. No seaweed or debris to get in her way, she could just float…
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Jocelyn’s 1st Days
Jocelyn has been to Spain many times but not to Valencia so the first outing we took her on yesterday was to the old part of town to wander the streets and shop. There were so many people out and about and Joey thought maybe it was because the weather had finally settled into more bearable temperatures. Jocelyn had a great idea for something that we could do next week that we all agreed would be great fun but we had to find a place to buy tickets and when we did, I took a picture and the smile on…
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We Have a Winner!
The metro and bus system in Valencia is amazing and makes getting around the city easy and convenient. Too bad buying the metro and bus tickets isn’t! Yesterday we had to go to the airport to pick up my friend Jocelyn who was flying in from Toronto to join us for two weeks. “A piece of cake”, we said, as we headed to the metro to take us to the airport. We had loaded our bus/metro card the day before so we wouldn’t have any problems. We scanned our card at the first turnstile and it beeped red, not allowing…
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There’s One in Every Group
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…
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All Things Scientific
Valencia is a city of diverse architecture. The oldest part of the city is dotted with slightly decaying brick buildings, spectacular churches with beautifully carved arches and turrets, tiny shops with hand carved wooden doors of every size and shape and ancient walls that at one time kept back the walls of the Turia River. Set all that against the beautiful new ultra-modern buildings that house the three-story Museo de las Ciencias (Science Centre), the Hemisferic (IMAX), and the Oceanografic (Europe’s largest aquarium). Today we spent 3 1/2 hours at the Science Centre and it was worth every moment. Each floor…
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Around Town
Knowing the noon heat would be too hard on us, we ventured out earlier today and headed east to explore new roads in our neighbourhood. We found many small cafes where people sat outside with coffees and sweets and some, to our amazement, drank beer. Everyday people doing everyday things! We came across a tobacco shop and decided to stock up on bus and metro tickets but the lady that worked there didn’t speak English so she yelled something to someone in the back and a nice young man came out and helped us. Between his limited English and our hand…