Valencia

March 27-29

Accommodations: The River Hostel – we had a private triple room booked for these two nights, and it was great to have some quieter privacy for a while!

                                        

We arrived at the hostel in the late afternoon and rested until dinner! We treated ourselves to a nice dinner outside with some great food. Since it was Easter Sunday, not much was happening around the city so we just had a relaxing night in.

Day 1

We did the hostel’s free walking tour in the morning, and learned about Valencia, one of the oldest in cities Spain, which was founded as a Roman colony. It exists on top of amazing Roman ruins, which we went to see at the archaeology museum afterwards. After some Spanish omelette and fresh orange juice made from famous Valencia oranges for lunch, we did a bit of exploring and shopping all afternoon.

Orange Trees outside the old Silk Exchange building

La Estrecha - Narrowest house in Europe

Plaza de la Virgen - built on the site that used to be the forum of Roman Valencia

We had plans that night to meet 3 friends from Singapore, who we met on our Tapas tour in Barcelona. We went for an amazing Tapas dinner, where each tapa was 1 euro, and beers were only 1.50. Afterwards, we went to an American bar where they served beer in red cups and we taught our new friends how to play flip cup!

Day 2

We met our friends again at Mercat Centrale – the biggest produce market in Europe. We got some traditional Valencian foods – horchata, a drink made from tigernuts, water, and sugar, and fartons, which are essentially straight, glazed donuts. 2 cups of freshly squeezed orange juice later, Katherine, Monica and I were ready to go to the beach!

Horchata & Fartons

After 40 minutes on the city bus to La Malvarossa beach, and a challenging search for sunscreen (which we learned is labeled ‘sun milk’ in Spain), we were so happy to have a relaxing afternoon on the beach. We had a delicious lunch at a beachside restaurant, where I tried ‘Valencian Paella,’ made with chicken and rabbit – I know, I can’t believe I ate it either.

We went back to the hostel to grab our bags, met our friends from Singapore for gelato and to say goodbye, and then caught a high-speed (I’m talking up to 310 km/h) train to Madrid!