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!

Tourist Day in Tarragona

Our full "tourist" day in Tarragona fell on Constitution Day (December 6). Since it was a holiday, some of the attractions were only open in the morning. We planned accordingly, and after breakfast at our hotel we started with the UNESCO world heritage sites shortly after they opened. The huge Roman amphitheater was right across the street from our hotel, and in fact we had a great view of it from our balcony. It was built around the year 100, and later became abandoned before a Visigoth church and then basilica were added, and then finally it was used as a convent and then a prison. The remains of all of these structures can still be (sorta) seen. 

The next stop, included on our ticket, was the remains of the roman circus just across the street. Much of the "old city" of Tarragona is built on top of the circus, but you can still visit some of the remains including a couple of long tunnels. It's now a whole archeological complex that also includes the remains of another basilica, museum exhibits, and part of the medieval city wall and tower. There were good views across the city from the top of the tower. 

An exhibit showing how it looked when a basilica was built in it.

Overview of the remains of the amphitheater.

A long tunnel that was part of the circus. Fans walked through to get to their seats.

The arches and roof of the former basilica, on top of the circus.

View from the top of the former basilica.

Next we continued on toward the city walls, which are also part of the UNESCO site. On the way we stopped at the model of Tarraco, which we actually thought was the entrance to the walls. The model was great for seeing how the Roman city was laid out, and how the current "old city" was built right on top of it. From there we walked around the corner to the actual entrance to the city walls. You can't go in them, but as you walk along them there are signs describing how they were adapted and re-used by many different empires and leaders. We also met a cute little cat we named Manchego.

Little Augustus and Booberella.

A cool model of the old Roman city.

A large portion of the city walls are intact, as they were added to and reinforced over the millennia.

David found a friend!

There was still one more site included in our ticket - the local forum, which was about a 20 minute walk from the exit of the walls area. There's not too much left here, but there are a few columns and foundations remaining. After the forum we walked toward the port. We had wanted to visit the National Archaeological Museum of Tarragona, but it's closed for renovation. Luckily, they took some of their best artifacts and put them on display in a temporary museum in the port. The port itself was interesting too, with a lot of people strolling and exercising on the promenade alongside the marinas.

The forum of Tarraco.

Outdoor escalator - there's a big altitude different between the port and the central city.

Random street art. Paul-achu, I choose you!

Nautical Homer for the win.

The museum is housed in one of the port buildings.

The temporary archeology exhibit.

Great bicycle infrastructure!

We walked back up to the old city, and had lunch at shifu ramen. It was not great (the tonkatsu did not taste right, but the miso ramen was decent) but atmosphere was good, with an over the top anime and Osaka subway theme. It's definitely been interesting trying various global cuisines in Spain, but it makes us appreciate the incredibly diversity in food of the USA.

Our next stop was right up the street: the cathedral. It has a large number of museum exhibits, and a pleasant cloister with orange trees, turtles in the fountain, and a resident cat or two. Overall a very impressive cathedral that shouldn't be missed.

Ramen Shifu is themed like the Osaka subway.

Before - yummy ramen.

After - cute bowls!

One of the many quaint intersections in the center of Tarragona.

A baroque elephant decoration in the cathedral.

The interior, with the impressive organ and dome.

Walking along the cloisters.

The views from the cloister courtyard were amazing.

A cat sitting in the shadows.

Oranges and stone.

One of the many museum exhibits in the cathedral.

Next we made a quick stop for ice cream at Bico de Xeado, a fancy Spanish ice cream chain. The arroz con leche flavor was delicious, and we also tried a unique fig and cheese flavor. We walked back and watched the first half of Spain world cup game outside on plaça de la font. There were lots of people, especially teenagers, watching from the restaurants and bars on the square. We caught the second half of the game back at our hotel, with Spain unfortunately losing in penalties. That night we went for a stroll and picked up Empanadas at Tio Bogotes and doner at Kebab Torraco, for a low-key dinner. Paul just wanted french fries from the kebab place, but they didn't quite get our order and gave us two sandwiches.

Ready for the world cup game!

A drink on the square.

The rooftop pool of our hotel.

David on our hotel rooftop with sweeping views.

Ha - message received emotionless pool rule board.

It's always a good time for empanadas.

We had a great time in Tarragona. It's not a major tourist destination like Barcelona or Madrid, but it's worth a visit for the roman ruins, quaint old town, and sea views. One thing we noticed both here and in Barcelona what that there was English-language Christmas music everywhere. We were surprised there aren't more Spanish holiday songs.

The next day (David's birthday!) was our travel day to Valencia, but our train didn't leave until 1PM, so we had a nice relaxing morning. We started with breakfast at the hotel, which was included each day because we booked online, and was really nice. The ground floor of our hotel had a large seating area and they set up a breakfast buffet each morning. It was a nice way to start each day in Tarragona. After eating we took a little stroll around town, stopping at the nearby Mediterranean balcony for some views, and then the remains of the Roman theatre. We popped in a couple of stores, including a small anime store, Flying Tiger, and the central market. 

The Christmas log is a regional symbol.

Metal stands showing where the stone seating used to be.

There was a big Christmas tree in the center of the market.

A light birthday lunch on the train.

We showered and packed up at the hotel, and caught the train to our last city of our trip, Valencia, for our final 2.5 days in Spain.