Monday, August 31 - Barcelona to Valencia

We were up early for our first travel day with bags out at 7:30 a.m., breakfast and departure at 8:30, and we were right on time.  The drive out of the city was neat as it's always great to see Gaudi's influence on everything.  A number of the tall buildings were curved and shapely.  Even fences and some roadworks (like overpasses) seemed to have the Gaudi touch.

Very soon we were out of the city and driving along with the Mediterranean to our left and the hills to our right.  There are small towns around but we are on the main expressway so we are not going through them directly.  A number of the towns are up on the hillsides and many of them have towers and walls - so our guide says.  We can't always see the towers and walls but they were all part of the system back in the old days when the villages had to be protected and when one town had to warn another of impending danger.

We are definitely driving through farmland.  We can identify groves of olive trees and orange trees, and we can also see lots of small green plants all neatly in a row.  I don't know what they are because they are too far away but they look like lettuce and perhaps peppers.

We had a rest stop along the highway - very clean facility and much like those along our highways.  That was shortly after 10 a.m.  Our lunch stop was in Peniscola and we had about 1.5 hours.  Peniscola is right on the Mediterranean and has a long sandy beach around a very quiet bay.   The water looked very inviting as it was calm and shallow.  There were lots of people enjoying the beach but we did not have time to do so - other than sticking our feet in.  Several people had amazing and large sand structures along the side of the promenade.  I don't know how they do it but they were great.  We had our lunch at a corner cafe just across the street from the promenade.  It was nice sitting outside watching all the beach goers.  There are a lot of hotels and resorts all along the beach and it is definitely a tourist town.  

In the afternoon we drove for about 2 hours to our destination of Valencia.  We had a quick bus tour through the newer parts of the city and then a very quick walking tour through the old city followed by 1.5 hours of free time before meeting the bus to go to the hotel.  The free time was just long enough for a drink (after our fast walk) plus time to get lost trying to go where we thought we should be going.  But we all made it back to the bus on time.  I think I was the last one but I was still a couple of minutes early.  Aside from the fact that most people got lost, I think we all went to the meeting point early because it was starting to rain.  By the time we got to our hotel we were in the midst of a thunder storm and it rained for the next couple of hours.  Luckily our dinner was at the hotel so we didn't have to go out anywhere.  The temperature is in the 30's and the humidity is high so we're hoping that the rain will help lower both.

Valencia is a city on the Mediterranean with a population of about 800,000, the third largest city in Spain behind Madrid and Barcelona.  The overall metropolitan area has a population of about 2.5 million and the port is the fifth busiest container port in Europe.   Valencia was founded by the Romans in 138 BC.  The old city section of Valencia is almost 170 hectares of wining streets and alleys (which makes it very easy to get lost in!).  Our walking tour took us past one of the old city gates that has now been restored.  We drove past the remains of another.  The city was once totally walled but little is remaining of that now.  

The new city is quite amazing with its unique designs.  The City of Arts and Sciences alone is quite spectacular.  We made a quick stop there while on our driving tour.  The buildings were all designed by the same Spanish architect and they are all curved and flowing and very modern looking.  They are also surrounded by pools of water which gives them a very cool look.  The buildings include an aquarium, planetarium, exhibition hall, sports complex, entertainment centre, museum, art gallery and the opera house - and probably more that I missed.  If you think of the curves and shape of the Sydney Opera House you'll think of the general design here.   I can't say they are all curved shapes though because the one is supposed to represent the back skeleton of aa whale os it's rather spiky in places.  It was all rather interesting though and it's built on the old river bed that was just a deserted area after the river was diverted away from the city in the 1950's.  This was definitely a good use of the area.

The Old city consists of many huge old buildings like the city hall, the post office and the bull ring on wide streets, but it also consists of smaller and older buildings on narrow winding streets.  We drove past the first buildings but never made it back to them because we were lost (I think I've mentioned that once or twice before).  

We walked through the old town so quickly that we barely had time to snap pictures.  We went past the Palacio del Marques de Dos Aguas which is now the ceramics museum and has beautiful ceramic designs and carvings on its facade.  That was our meeting place so easy to find.  We went past several churches: St. Martin, Sta. Catalina, St. John, the Cathedral and the Basilica of the Virgin.  All are old looking on thee outside and have a tower of some sort but they are all different.  There are lots of decorated buildings in the old city with carvings, mouldings, balconies, ceramics, frescoes, etc. for adornment.  We passed many nice squares, some fountains, statues and other sights but really had no time to study anything in detail.

The only place I went into on my free time was the Cathedral of Valencia where supposedly the holy grail is stored.  This church was consecrated in 1238 but was built over many centuries.  And it was built on even the older ruins from a Visigoth church and a Muslim mosque.  The cathedral is large with two rows of pillars and high arches. It seems more open than some churches as the side aisles are part of the main church.  It is light in colour with little decoration.  The windows are up high and clear except for one beautiful coloured roe window at the back above the main entrance.  The main altar is gold in colour with six square paintings in bright viivid colours with sculptures on either side.  The dome above the altar has bright gold carved beams and painted vivid blue sky between with angels of white and gold on it.  A side chapel has a beautiful carved altar with 12 biblical pictures on it with six from the old and six from the new testament.  In the centre shrine is the supposed holy grail.  Many scientists believe ti is the real thing but I guess we'll never know for sure.

Dinner back at the hotel was a chicken paella, one of their Catalan dishes.  They cook it in large shallow dishes and they came around to show us what it looked like before serving it.  It looked good and it tasted good, although a lot of people thought it was too salty and no one had ever head of chicken paella so they didn't think it was really paella without seafood in it.  After dinner we sat around visiting for a while and then it was time for bed.

Okay, this one is finished and i'm going to try e-mailing and posting it from the bus.  This will be a test of how good the wi-fi is as we move along.