Sunday
Since we didn’t make it to Valencia until evening, we did not get a chance to see very much of the city today. We did go wandering after dark down to the cultural center of the city. Palau de les Arts is a huge complex with an opera house, omni theater, science museum, art exhibition space, and plenty of walking and biking paths all around the area. The buildings were all lit up at night and were quite a sight to see! We would return later in the week to explore during the day, but they are other-worldly at night.
Monday
Our first plan today was to go to the Tourist Information office to get a better idea of which places we want to visit this week and if there are any events for Santa Semana that we want to catch while we are here.
From there we went to La Lonja de la Seda. This is a historic building that housed the silk market and was the center of trading in Valencia at the time. UNESCO has it listed as a World Heritage site because it is one of the largest and grandest secular buildings in Europe at the time.
The columns in the Silk Hall are stunning! I’ve never seen twisted columns like this before and it feels like a very special place. The two side rooms had incredible ceilings too. While the building didn’t take very long to explore, I was glad to visit it!
Next we went to the Central Market — the massive market building across the street from the Lonja. Depending on where you read it, the market has somewhere between 300 and 1,500 stalls. No clue how many there are in actuality, but it is quite large! We bought some wonderful strawberries, wandered the stalls, and were surprised by the huge variety of produce, meats, and cooking goods available for sale. The strawberries were particularly tempting!
The kids were very excited to check out the Gulliver’s Playground in the park, so that was our next stop. The playground is designed to look like all the kids are Lilliputians climbing over a slumbering Gulliver. There are slides going down in all direction and none look like a traditional “round” slide. Since this week in Santa Semana, the schools are out and thus lots of kids were at the park. Keller and I staked out a spot in the shade and let Kamy and Caden run around and play. The verdict was very positive — both kids liked it and it makes #3 on Kamy’s list!
Lunch was an Italian restaurant called Lambusqueria. We made a reservation and were glad that we did! By the time we were done eating, the entire place was packed. The restaurant had a great deal on their menu of the day, so it was clearly a draw for locals. The salads were wonderful and the pasta was very tasty too.
We returned to the apartment for some down time for a bit. The kids asked to go back to the Gulliver playground. It was even busier this evening than it was earlier today, but they still had fun.
We did a LOT of walking today and my FitBit agreed. 22,579 steps!
Tuesday
Today we went down to the science museum! The kids have been itching for a hands on museum and something different, so we made a point of checking this one out. I took more photos of the Palau de les Arts in the daylight — many of the buildings are covered with ceramic tiles so they shimmer in the sunlight and look like scales.
In fact, the entire complex resembles a massive fish when seen from above!
It was pretty neat! When we got there it was very empty and we had the place almost to ourselves for the first 90 minutes or so. There was an extensive exhibit on Mars and astronomy, as well as multiple interactive exhibits. Kamy especially enjoyed the gravity wells and Caden liked the black hole.
We ate a light picnic lunch at the museum and then explored the Chromosomes exhibit. It was really neat because each section explained some of the traits that are controlled by a given chromosome. There was also a neat exhibit about languages — how they develop, how kids learn them, and how they are connected to each other.
Kamy and Caden also enjoyed the kids section. There were numerous hands on activities centered around the physics for various fairy tale stories, like building strength from The Three Little Pigs.
There was also a Harry Potter traveling exhibition in the same building, with props and costumes from the movies. While the kids were interested in going, we decided to pass since the tickets were pricey and they saw a larger collection of the same items when we were in London at the Harry Potter studios last year. However, the kids liked finding all the promotional statues set up around the city.
After the museum, we went back to the apartment. While the kids had some down time and Keller worked, I went to the local market and the grocery store for food. I cooked dinner that night and we spent the rest of the evening at the apartment.
We’ve been enjoying fresh Valencia oranges every day. When you can get 5 kilos for 3 euros, it is easy to buy a lot!
Wednesday
Today we are taking a tour of the opera house! Palau de Les Arts is a complex with four different performing venues. The exterior of the building is really neat and is covered with tiles. It looks like fish scales in the sun!
The theaters inside were less impressive than we were expecting. Overall we decided we like the more elaborate venues than the ultra-modern style. We weren’t allowed to take photos in the largest space, but I did take pictures of the three smaller ones.
Lunch was a Ca Pastor, more Spanish tapas. It was pretty tasty, though less memorable than some restaurants.
We went back to the apartment this afternoon for some down time. About 6:30 we walked over to the Palau de la Musica. Their website said there was a free concert this evening, so we were hoping to get tickets. When we arrived, we were given tickets and shuffled downstairs. To our surprise, there was another free concert starting at 7:30! This was with a pianist playing Schumann. I quickly realized that this is not the concert we were intending on going to … nor were we in the right location! The orchestra concert was across town in front of City Hall!
So we hustled across town. We made a quick stop at a bakery for chocolate filled croissants and then finished walking to the plaza. There were a lot of people there! We managed to find a spot on the outside of the seating area where we could hear pretty well and see okay. The chocolate croissants were super messy and chocolate ended up everywhere, but they did taste good!
The concert was a lot of fun! The conductor didn’t take himself very seriously and he had a blast being silly. He poked fun at the US and Germans, used a Japanese cat as a conductor, and generally acted a fool. Kamy and Caden loved it! One of my favorite “songs” was the William Tell Overture, where the musicians SANG their part instead of played it. Any time there was an emphasis or louder note they’d stand up. It was hilarious!
At the very end the orchestra played Highway to Hell, which Caden loved. 😉 We were very glad that we made the concert and thoroughly enjoyed our time!
Thursday
It is rainy and cold (again) today, so we opted to visit the Church of Saint Nicolas. It is a beautiful baroque church with ceiling frescoes that are amazing! It was restored in the 19th century and has been called the Sistine Chapel of Spain.
The audio guide was wonderful and gave a ton of great information about the frescoes and chapels.
Since we were there right when it opened, we had the place nearly to ourselves. It was very peaceful and a lovely way to spend the morning. Despite being smaller, this is one of our favorite churches from our trip!
After the church, we walked to the Silk Museum. Admission was included in our ticket for the church, so it was easy to slide into our plans. The museum itself was just okay, but we got to watch two demonstrations while we were there! The first was the manual working of a Jacquard loom. This is the third version we have seen, after Lyon and Calais last spring. It is really neat to compare the different looms and build upon what we have seen before. Plus we saw more punch cards!
There was also a demonstration of how the silk cocoons would be unwound and spun into silk threads for weaving. The cocoons are soaked in hot water and then the strands are pulled through. Kamy was one of the last people watching the demonstration, so the docent asked Kamy if she wanted to pull the silk! Kamy did a great job, but it’s amazing to think of the amount of time and work necessary for just a little bit of silk. No wonder real silk is so expensive!
For lunch, we tried two different restaurants which were either booked for not open for another hour or more, so we ended up back at Lambusqueria again. All these restaurants in town and yet we returned to one we know we like.
After lunch, we walked up to the Mercado de Colon. While it used to be a standard Spanish market space, it has since been converted into restaurants and tapas bars. Our plan was to try a traditional Valencian dessert — Horchata. Horchata is a drink made with tiger nuts and often served with fartons. The fartons tasted like a light brioche bread with a little sweet icing on top, while the horchata itself tasted like carrots to me! Definitely not what I was expecting! I can’t say it’s my new favorite, but we did give it a shot.
Keller headed back to the apartment for work while the kids and I walked down to the Aquarium! The Oceanographic is one of the highlights of Valencia and comes very highly recommended. It is a huge complex with numerous underground (and underwater) passages and outside elements. Since it was cold and rainy, we couldn’t really appreciate the outside parts — the flamingos and dolphins weren’t nearly as interesting in the cold rain! The shark tank was very nice and the kids loved hunting for all the fish in the tanks. We definitely enjoyed the aquarium, I just wish the weather was a bit nicer so we could have done more outside.
We ended up taking an Uber back to the apartment — a 30 minute walk in the cold and wind and rain wasn’t in my game plan for the day. 😉 We decided to go out for a light dinner this evening. Keller found a cool little pizza place where you order however many little pizzas you want, tell them what toppings you do NOT like, and they’ll bring you random pizzas! There were definite favorites, but all the pizzas were tasty.
Friday
Today is our last day in Valencia! We’ve been able to see most of the things on our Must See list, so today was a slower day. We have a really busy weekend coming up. It also remains cold and rainy, which limits our interest in getting out to explore.
Keller still hasn’t had authentic paella in Spain, so we went to lunch at Raco del Turia. It came highly recommended by yesterday’s Uber driver as the best paella in Valencia, so it seemed worth trying! The food was quite tasty and Keller said it’s one of his favorite meals from the entire trip. That’s pretty high praise!
Otherwise we hung out at the apartment, played some cards, and packed up! We head to Tarragona starting tomorrow morning for a long holiday weekend. We stocked up on jamon at the grocery store too … between strawberries, oranges, and jamon, we’ve usually got something tasty on hand!
Overall we really liked Valencia! It was big enough to have a lot going on and feel metropolitan without feeling totally over run with chaos and tourists. Definitely one of our favorite cities of this trip so far!