Then we headed off to the City of Arts and Sciences since it was too dark for good pictures the night before. It didn’t open until 10 am, and the 30 euro ($40) price tag and limited time in the city lead to a group consensus of seeing the outside of the buildings but not paying that much to go in.
We found a pastry place after that and then grabbed our stuff and hopped on a bus to head to the hostel for the second night. We were able to drop our bags off in a room and then just take what we needed for the day. Our first stop was the cathedral there. Everything is very built up all around it, but the insides and outsides are still very elaborately decorated. The front had a lot of gold, and there were a lot of figures carved into the outside.
One of the highlights of the church was a small room off to the right that had the holy grail in it. The room was a bit smoky even though I didn’t see any lit candles, and the light coming in through the one window at the top had beautiful rays illuminated. I realized on this trip that I have a different way of traveling than a lot of students my age with me wanting to see the art and the church more (along with a famous art museum here) but everyone else wants to do other things.
holy grail
Next stop was the Mercado Central which was a large building with glass decorated walls and filled with little stalls inside selling fruits, vegetables, hams, fish, and all sorts of other things including different spices. We all split some figs and they were ripe juicy and delicious!
After that we went in search of La Lonja which was the original market before it was too small, and then after that was a place for silk trading. It had a gothic façade and the inside was a large room with chandeliers and columns that had twisting designs going up them. A small garden accompanied it on the side too.
Walking into town we had passed what looked like a very authentic horchateria. Horchata is a very traditional drink from the area made from tiger nuts and served chilled or with crushed ice. It was sweet and tasted really good, and there was a lot of the traditional ceramics decorating the doorway and walls.
From there we headed to the Plaza de Ayuntamiento where we saw the outside of the bullring and checked out the ceramics and decorations in the train station. Valencia is also famous for its ceramics, but I didn’t see that much of them there.
Lunch was quite difficult with a group of 7 with some people wanting to head back to the beach for lunch, but as it got later people got hungry and cranky, and then some people just wanted to find a place to sit while others wanted to try arroz negra (which we had seen a lot of earlier but were having trouble finding at that point) which uses black squid ink for coloring and flavor. We finally made our way back to a place we had seen before with arroz negra. Almost all of us got paella again and I’m pretty sure that everyone was very happy with the final decision. I was really happy that I got to try arroz negra since it is one of their other specialties.
We also tried Agua de Valencia with lunch today. It is a specialty of the area that we had seen yesterday with the paella but was a lot more expensive than we wanted to pay. It is a cocktail made from fresh orange juice, sparkling wine and a splash of liqueur. It was good, but not as good to me as the price a lot of people pay for it.
Post lunch we headed back to the hostel, the Red Nest Hostel, and checked in. The location of our first hotel was really nice being close to the beach, and the location of the hostel was really nice being in the middle of town. I’m really happy with how lucky I got in the locations since I wasn’t specifically looking for them in those places- just cheap and not in the outskirts of town!
We changed and headed back to the beach to relax and play in the surf since it was such a beautiful day! It was so nice to be able to lie on the beach and relax then go play in the ocean that only seemed cold for less than a minute. The beach there is very large and extremely nice with very fine sand and just a slight breeze.
Emma had been walking around town instead of going to the beach with the rest of us, so after a few hours there we headed back to meet up with her. After showers and getting ready, we shared a little cheap wine in the eating area of the hostel where we met a really nice guy from Belgium.
The hostel is a really neat place. We are in a room with 12 bunk beds and take up just over half the room. Some people were a little worried about staying in a hostel for the first time, but it was a lot of fun and an adventure to me. There are individual rooms along with rooms for 4, 6 or 12 people, and all the walls are extremely brightly colored with some swirly designs on some.
Then we headed out for dinner, ending up at a pizza place. It was really good and I ended up splitting a pizza with Lauren while everyone else completely ate one on their own. The waiter was also really nice, and at the end, he told us that it is actually cheaper (6.50 euros) to get a drink too instead of just the pizza by itself (7.55 euros). Not something that would happen in the US both with the restaurant doing that and a waiter working for tips.
On the way there Audrey and I had a very fun and excited conversation because she was really good friends in high school with Kirk who goes to Reed, and he was in my dorm freshman year along with being my chemistry lab partner and going running with me most mornings first semester.
We had coupons for free drinks at Purple Nest Hostel, the sister hostel to the one we were staying in, so we headed over there after dinner. It wasn’t too exciting because we didn’t want to be the huge group of Americans who intruded on people in their little groups and took over but hung out there for a little bit. There is an area, Barrio Carmen, which is the really good area for bars and going out, but most of the group was just wanting to go back to the hostel so we ended up doing that.
Even though it was a room for 12 people and all the beds were claimed, we were the only ones in the room so after we all got ready for bed we stayed up for at least an hour talking, playing games and hanging out. At one point the guy who had the bed under Kevin (who was a complete slob and we had been making fun of before even though we had never seen him) came in, changed his shirt, sprayed really strong cologne, and then good night to all of us in some sort of an accent as he left. That kept us laughing for a while.
It was a long day where we packed in a lot of stuff, but I think we are all extremely happy with how this trip is turning out.
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