¡¡Valencia!!

Hello, all! Happy Thanksgiving week! This November I’ve been finding one thing I’m thankful for everyday and writing it down, no matter how silly or seemingly insignificant. (I did try to stay away from the cliches though, haha.) So far, with November almost over, they cover a whole bunch of topics, everything from proximity to the beach to the ability to sleep in to having people with whom to go out to dinner. For honesty’s sake, I will admit that some days it’s hard to think of something I’m thankful for, but there’s always something. It’s been a great exercise in thankfulness.

One of things I’ve been thankful for is the trip our program took to Valencia, a really fun couple of days. This post is dedicated to letting you all see some of what we did over those two days (with pictures, of course!).

Thursday

Valencia is about a two hour drive north from Alicante, so we piled onto a bus Thursday morning to get there. Our first stop was los Torres de Serranos, a tower/prison that was part of a city wall back before the discovery of the Americas and when Valencia was the major city of Spain (due to its location on the Mediterranean).

Valencia is Spain’s third largest city, so the tower gave us a really pretty view of the sprawling city. (Also, while we were up there, we got to watch some kids play a hybrid of soccer and basketball during their school recess — yes, their outdoors space is on the roof!)

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Then we went to a place called la Lonja de la Seda, which is an old marketplace where they used to trade silk and oranges. The building actually had a courtyard filled with orange trees. (Fun fact: Valencia is actually known for their citrus, specifically oranges, so orange trees were just casually everywhere in the city — super cool!)

Inside, the marketplace looked more (to me, at least) like a huge ballroom, with stained glass and ornate ceilings, and then below the ground-level floor, there was also a prison, where they would keep people who tried to cheat the trading system. To me, it looked like something out of Pirates of the Caribbean.

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After that, we had free time to explore and grab lunch. Feeling adventurous, I shared another one of Valencia’s distinguished cuisines: rabbit paella. Oh yes. I wasn’t a huge fan of the rabbit, but the paella itself was delicious (and let’s be honest, pretty to look at).

After lunch, we met up with the rest of the group and then visited la Catedral, which we toured by doing a audio tour. It was really funny to watch because all of us were listening to a synced audio that one of the professors controlled, so all 25 of us would get up and move at the same time as a group — seemingly without any prompting. Very amusing to watch.

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The Cathedral itself is gorgeous and I’m sure my face was stuck in a shocked position the entire time. I’ve got a weakness for huge and ornate cathedrals, so it was amazing to get to explore this one a little.

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Connected to the cathedral is the bell tower, even higher than the tower of the wall that we visited earlier that day. We went up through a steep, narrow spiral staircase and then were treated to some spectacular views at the top.

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After that, we visited a horchateria to try una horchata, a plant milk beverage. Apparently they have this in Mexico too and some of my friends said that they prefer the Mexican version, so I’m going to have to try the Mexican version style to see which I like more (it might be an easy evaluation since I didn’t like Spanish one very much).

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Friday

We spent Friday at the Oceanográfico, which is the largest aquarium in Europe and, I believe, ranked the sixth best in the world. It has everything and is gigantic! It’s claim to fame, though, is its long shark tunnel, a glass tunnel where huge sharks swim all around you. Super cool.

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The first thing we did was go on a backstage tour, getting to see how the aquarium runs and all the projects they are working on. We listened to the guide talk into a microphone through little headphones, but there was so much feedback and poor connection (in addition to the explanations being in Spanish) that I couldn’t understand 90% of what the guide said. Nevertheless, it was still cool to see the backside of the aquarium.

The coolest part by far though was toward the end of the tour. Remember that shark tunnel that I mentioned earlier? Well, obviously the tanks surrounding that glass are huge and above that tunnel and those tanks are catwalks (like you would find above theater stages) that they use to check in on the sharks and feed them. Well, we got to walk on those catwalks, which was immensely cool but also really scary. The catwalks themselves were pretty shaky and sometimes they would creak and dip down (also, I saw that some were being held together by zip ties — not a confidence booster). So there I was, walking on shaky catwalks that were about two feet above water that held GIGANTIC sharks that were RIGHT THERE. My heart was definitely racing.

After the tour ended, we had free time to go and explore the aquarium. Even with a decent amount of time, we still didn’t explore all of what it has to offer.

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Overall, I had a blast in Valencia. Two days isn’t enough to thoroughly explore the city, as there’s lots more to do and see there. Definitely somewhere I would go back to again!

Next time: my visit to a winery and other random happenings.

Happy (early) Thanksgiving everyone!

¡Hasta luego!

— Grace