Wrapping Up Valencia - Adios España!

Our final full day of our Spain trip was spent exploring some of the newer sights in Valencia - a couple of modernist markets and the Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias (city of arts and sciences). We started with mercat central, a 1920s art nouveau market just down the street from our hotel. From there we began a leisurely stroll through the Turia park, first stopping by Mercat de Colom (Mercado de Colón), a modernist market from 1916. A unique site along the way was a giant Gulliver playground. It consists of a huge fiberglass statue of Gulliver tied to the ground. Kids can climb all over and around him in a series of pathways and slides.

Mercat central is an impressive market.

The soaring interior of mercat central.

A giant tree in a square.

Mercat de Colom's exterior.

The cool modernist interior.

A leafy street in one of the modernist neighborhoods of Valencia.

Colonnades in the Turia gardens/park.

Gulliver has fallen!

Our main sight for the day was the Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències, or City of Arts and Sciences. This is an expansive campus of museums, event venues, and public spaces designed by the famous Valencian architect Santiago Calatrava. It was built from 1996-2009, and is considered one of the "12 treasures of Spain." It's a cool area of futuristic architecture, although it can feel a little dystopian and sterile since it's disconnected from the city fabric. 

Like a spaceship landed on Valencia.

The buildings have amazing soaring interiors.

Calatrava is big on clean repitition.

David in L'Umbracle.

The area has a lot of huge reflecting pools.

View from the adjacent rose garden.

After leaving the City of Arts and Sciences, we had a quick drink at a snack kiosk in the park, then we decided to take the subway back, since we hadn't yet used it. We walked to the Amistat station and rode to the central train station. After a quick stop in a store and our hotel, we went for our lunch reservations at Rincon 33, which is known for their paella. The paella was good, but overall we're not huge seafood people so the dish is probably mostly wasted on us. Next time, we would try a less seafoody variety perhaps (we love rice dishes in general). After lunch we grabbed a bit more ice cream...because why not?

Nice bicycle infrastructure in the neighborhood we walked through.

Ummm... Ok.

The exterior of the train station.

Squid ink paella!

I mean you could go a meal without patatas bravas...but why would you?

One last ice cream before we leave Europe.

After a siesta at hotel, we went out for the evening, enjoying our final night on the streets of Valencia. We walked around and did a little last minute shopping, and joined a crowd watching the end of the Brazil vs. Croatia world cup game outside a pub. We got empanadas to go from a place called Yaya's, and went back to our hotel to pack and get ready for our very early morning.

A big crowd gathered to watch the game on a little TV.

Empanadas are all over Valencia. These were delicious!

Saturday morning we woke up extremely early to catch a 4AM taxi to the airport, in time for our 6AM flight. The airport experience was really quick and easy, so we could have slept in a bit more, but always better not to take the chance of missing your flight! The plane from Valencia to Paris was quite small, so we thought we might have to check our bags. I asked the gate agent if my bag would fit in the overhead compartment, and her response was "more or less." 😅  It did end up fitting and luckily we could take our bags as carry-on all the way to Atlanta.

Overall, this was a great and relaxing trip to Spain for David's birthday, mirroring the trip we took for his birthday to Italy the previous year. We've been to Spain a few times and really enjoy the food, sites and culture this country has to offer.

Valencia Day 2 - Orange You Glad We Visited Spain?

The next day, it was a quiet rainy morning. We got a cappuccino at the nearby "The Coffee," which oddly is a Japan-inspired Brazilian to-go coffee shop with locations in Brazil, Spain, Portugal, France, and Colombia. We walked to the nearby Almoina Archeology Museum. This museum is unique because it's mostly underground, and preserves the remains of the Roman city starting from 200BCE, and later middle ages and Islamic buildings. It's not a huge museum, but its a neat design with a big street-level skylight ceiling that serves as a pool for the plaza above. There's not much left of any of the ancient buildings, but many of the foundations and floors are still visible.

Rainy morning in Valencia.

Well it is what it says it is!

A quiet square in the morning rain.

Roman remains in the Almoina Museum.

Original roman floors.

The skylight of the building has a small pool above it, creating unique views.

Next we walked over to two more museums - the Museo de Prehistoria and the Valencia Ethnographic Museum, which are connected in the same building. These are kind of off to the side of the historic center and were not crowded at all, but were very interesting museums. The history museum is more of a traditional museum, with a large amount of artifacts and displays about the history of the area. Most of the displays were only in Castilian and Valencian, which might explain why there were few foreign tourists here. The ethnographic museum was a surprise, with a variety of interesting high-tech exhibits covering a broad range of topics and featuring more English information. These are definitely worth at least a quick visit if you have a few days in Valencia. After the museums we had a quick lunch at Hasta la Pasta. 

Exhibit in the prehistoric museum.

Exhibit in the ethnographic museum.

David using an interactive exhibit.

A video game history exhibit. We're old. 😆

There was a little exhibit on paella. Immediately after taking this picture an abuelita came over and explained to Paul, in Spanish, all the components of a true Valencian paella.

A simple but yummy lunch.

After lunch we walked over to our 4th museum of the day, the Museo de Bellas Artes. This is a free museum with mostly religious art. It's considered a highlight of Valencia, but we actually preferred the museums we visited earlier in the day. Still maybe worth a visit, especially on a rainy day, if you're into early medieval art. To wrap up the afternoon we decided to do a little shopping and grab a snack. We walked over to the nearby commercial area next to the train station, and stopped by Pull and Bear and Corte Ingles, picking up a few Christmas presents before continuing on to Horchateria Santa Catarina. Horchata in Valencia is pretty different from what we're used to in North America, because it uses tiger nut instead of rice. We walked around for a little bit before taking a siesta at our hotel.

Exterior of the Museo de Bellas Artes.

Interior of the Museo de Bellas Artes.

A cool/creepy painting.

View of Turia park/gardens from the bridge to the museum. Great place for biking!

A quiet square on a rainy day.

Cool buildings abound in Valencia.

David just hanging out at Pull & Bear.

Santa Catalina is a classic spot for horchata and churros.

After our siesta, we ventured back out for dinner at a restaurant called "Secret," which has a broadly Spanish and European menu. Nothing to write home about, but pretty tasty. We followed dinner up with a stroll around the Church Square where some buskers were playing music to a large crowd. We also hit up a shop or two and got gelato at Gelateria la Romana. Valencia, like many Spanish cities, really comes to life at night.

Eggplant and pasta for dinner.

The city is really well lit for effect, especially around key shopping areas or plazas.

A little post-dinner gelato!

There is an entire store dedicated to American candy, cereals and treats...random.

Fun fountain.

A Christmas tree in the plaza.

We dug the vibes in Valencia at Christmas!

Valencia - Arrival and Fancy Birthday Dinner!

We left Tarragona for our last stop on our trip - Valencia. This is the third largest city in Spain, but seems to fly under the radar a bit. It shouldn't, as this is an amazing city to visit! Exiting the train station, you're pretty much in the center of town. It was a short walk to our hotel, through a big plaza lined with modernist buildings from the early 20th century. Our hotel, Cosmo, is a boutique hotel and restaurant. Check-in and the elevators are right in the middle of the restaurant, which was...interesting. Our room was a bit small, but had a huge balcony. One perk of the hotel: best shower we've ever had in Europe. Overhead, rain, high pressure... nice!

After checking in mid-afternoon, we decided to take a stroll around the city center and hit a highlight or two before sunset. First, we visited Valencia's UNESCO site La Lonja, which was a historic silk exchange built in the late 1400s when Valencia was a major center of Mediterranean trade with the East. It's a little ironic they built such an extravagant building to celebrate their trade dominance around the same time Europeans began to explore the Americas which would ultimately shift the balance of power away from the Mediterranean towards the Atlantic.

What a grand welcome to Valencia!

The historic interior of the train station.

Just like in Tarragona, we had a huge balcony in Valencia (which was bigger than our actual room).

The exterior of La Lonja looks like a castle.

The whimsical twisting columns in the interior.

After visiting La Lonja, we strolled a few minutes towards the cathedral, which is not unlike many cathedrals in Spain. The main claim to fame here is one of the chapels holds what's claimed to be the true Holy Grail. That's one heck of a relic! Of more interest to us was the tower you can climb for panoramic views of the city center. The steps were very narrow and going up is quite popular, so after you pay your few euro fee, you have to wait until a little green light turns on and the crowd coming down has all passed. While you're up top, you then have to wait until its your turn to go back down. Efficient!

Interior of the cathedral.

The holy grail? Uh, sure.

David climbing up to the cathedral tower.

Great views from the top.

Some taller buildings and the port in the distance.

Looking through the windows on the way back down.

Our last stop on our quick city tour that evening was the city's ring park through one of the old city gates. The park, Jardin del Turia, is a long linear park that passes through the entire city from west to east. It serves as a great emerald necklace of green space that surrounds the city center and passes through many neighborhoods. The space is full of running and biking trails, event spaces, sports fields and playgrounds. A really great amenity for the city... with a questionable origin story. The park was born from the desire to prevent flooding in Valencia. In the mid 1960s the river Turia, which used to pass through the city center, flooded causing damage to a large part of the city center. City leaders decided to take a draconian approach and reroute the river around the southern side of the city and prevent future floods. Initial plans were to create a highway where the river used to flow, but that idea was eventually replaced with the plan to create a large park with nearly 20 subsections in a master plan that spanned 50 years. So, while we think the space is really great and a huge asset for Valencia, it came at the cost of a huge disruption to the city's ecosystem and by 21st century environmental standards is a questionable decision at best.

On the way back to the hotel for a quick siesta before dinner, we ran into a few cute shops and got some drinks and gifts for family members. The city center of Valencia is really a wonderful, dense, walkable community with great shopping, restaurants and cultural amenities. We highly recommend staying in this part of town if you visit Valencia. 

Old city gate, one of several around the city center that used to be attached to walls.

Walking path in the Turia Park. More pictures of the park to follow in another post.

The central city is really pretty and comes alive at twilight.

Truer words have never been spoken in any language. (You can't buy happiness, but you can buy ice cream... which is the same thing)

For David's birthday dinner, we made reservations for a tasting menu meal at one of the top rated restaurants in Valencia - Karak. Karak had three options for the tasting menu, an 8 course, 10 course and 12 course meal. We opted for the middle option, along with wine pairing. Often when we travel abroad, and especially in developing countries, we will try to find at least one really outstanding restaurant to try (like Leo in Bogota, Dulce Patria in Mexico City and Central in Lima). These meals are usually much cheaper than a comparable experience in the USA and allow us to try some different types of food.

Karak is a really excellent restaurant. We were able to try a wide variety of interesting dishes and wines in a really chic atmosphere with very attentive staff. If we had a single complaint, David would say the tie in between all the dishes in this tasting was "smoke" and most of the food had a somewhat smoky flavor, which he is not a huge fan of in general. Paul has the opposite opinion and loves smoky flavors in food...who's birthday was this again?! We were also able to meet head chef Rakel Cernicharo, as she introduced herself to all the guests at some point during their meal. Some people had really in depth conversations with her about the food, which is a nice touch. Join us for a course by course photo tour of our visit to Karak, below. 😋

Course 1: Six "snacks." Paul's favorite was third from the left - smoked Canarian goat cheese, celery, yogurt, smoked peanut, pickled mustard caviar, and cocoa butter. Intense and unique flavors!

Course 2: Preserved charred tomato, romesco with almonds, and tamari ponzu. One of David's favorite dishes.

Course 3: Galacian mussels with sriracha, cinnamon, anise, cloves, cardamom, shisho, lime, and cognac, with tofu tartar and turmeric foam.

Course 4: Gazpacho with tikka and tandoori curry, chickpeas pedrosillanos, shrimp tartar, a crispy tapioca cookie, and coconut cream.

Course 5: Dry-aged meatballs with black chanterelle stew, chicken liver pate, smoked pine nut, mushroom and bone marrow broth, and blueberry and blue spirulina granola.

Paul smiling despite eating mushrooms! David was not a fan of the liver.

Course 6: Smoked lamb and carob ravioli, celery cream, pickled lemon sauce, puffed quinoa, and spice crumble. Another of David's favorite dishes.

Pre Course 6: We were given these pieces of metal. Cutlery or medieval torture devices?

Ohh, cutlery. 

Course 7: Twelve day aged salmon, carrot kimchi, venere rice, garlic and fermented ginger.

Course 8: Stilton blue cheesecake with elderberry, smoked cookie, smoked paprika meringue, rose cava, yuzu, kombucha coulis, black tea, tamarind, coriander seeds, ashwagandha, dried beet, fenugreek, smoked paprika, millet granola, quinoa, and amaranth. WHEW! The real treat is the negative space on the plate...

Course 9: Cold soufflé with smoked hazelnuts gianduja, smoked corn, citric masala, and fermented black garlic toffee.

Course 10: Petit Fours. Left to right: carrot, orange, smoked butter, and dried citrus peel. Smoked pine nuts and white chocolate. Smoked strawberries, smoked strawberry coulis, yuzu chocolate. Smoked spiced chocolate, grilled plums, thyme, licorice salt.

All in all, not a bad way to spend a 41st birthday. 😉 A couple more days of Valencia touristic fun to come!