Spain: Valencia, city of sun, sea and beaches

From Granada, we took an overnight bus to Valencia. This time, it took us 8 hours to reach. Since there were five of us, we decided to get an apartment to stay in. Paying 13 euros/night, I thought we gotten ourselves a treasure! Check out 11flats Valencia. We had everything a service apartment can give us – a fully furnished house and kitchen, clean bathrooms and bedrooms, a patio.

Valencia is well known for its beaches. There were 2 types of beaches, the city and the outskirt (with nudist section). Boyfriend and I went to both of them. Too bad, it was too cold for us to jump into the deep, blue sea! But love all the sun and sand.

Jumping with joy for the beach

Another attraction for Valencia is their City of Arts and Sciences. This city is filled with buildings with architecture from the next century. And indeed, they look like they are from the future.

The City of Arts and Science

From City of Arts and Sciences, we decided to ditch the public transport and walk along the pathway, which was once the River of Turia. The Valencia (or is it Spain?) authorities decided to divert the Turia River to another place, out of the city centre, and build a stretch of long, beautiful garden, for people to walk, recreate, and spend quality time with family and friends. If only Singapore has this kinda walkway!

The Central Market is an attraction in almost every city we’ve been to. Madrid with their Mercado de San Miguel, and now Valencia with their Central Market. Erase your images of smelly and dirty wet market, these people knows how to keep their market clean, and almost dry, even at the poultry (they have rabbit and horse meat) and seafood section. And their strawberries are so huge and red that we bought 2kg to ourselves.

Strawberries!

Lunch was at this cafe near the Market. We all took their Menu del dia. Most of us had their Paella, which said to have rabbit meat! And for mains, most of the others have grilled squids, deep-fried fish paella. And I choose the less interesting ones, which are carbonara pasta and salmon fried with some other stuff. This shops serves really good food. Apart from my main being too salty, the meal was like a consolation to our stomach after what we had in Granada. And for dessert, I had profiteroles, which is some roundish puff with chocolate inside. Only one word to describe it, HEAVEN!

Paella, with rabbit meat!

My main - Salmon with some other stuff

Deep fried fish

The walk back from the City of Arts and Science is a very long one. When we reach back to our apartment, most of the shops were closed. Boyfriend and I decided to grab kebabs which I secretly missed since our trip from Belgium. And our friends went to this bar and had Monster Burger, with 3 burger patties!! According to them, the bar owner was so happy that they got a free drink from him for ordering the MONSTER!

MONSTER Burger!

But the most famous food for Valencia is not any of the above. The Paella originates from Valencia. So for authentic paella, do drop by Valencia for a taste of it. We did not get to try them as they were quite pricey for our budget. Do expect a good 10 euros or more per person for paellas.

Valencia is a small town, and you have limited things to do. If you don’t like beaches or sunbathing, try to spend as little time as possible in Valencia. As for me, I like the beaches. I don’t mind spending a few more days in Valencia. Besides that, we have this gorgeous apartment to just relax in for a lazy day.