Valencia - Summer 2019

July 16, 2019

Valencia - Summer 2019

Leaving Barcelona was sad but we were excited about visiting the seaside city of Valencia, and travelling by train rather than
car or plane was an added bonus. The views on the train ride along the Spanish coast were beautiful and getting us ready for some lovely beach weather.

Train travel is super easy and comfortable, especially when you are travelling light. At this point I should point out that we traveled for 3 weeks with carry-on luggage only !!! I seriously think we need an award for that !!! As you can imagine, a capsule wardrobe means you need the option to do some washing - so an airbnb in Valencia was a must and ours was very centrally located in the middle of the Old Town.

This area of town is primarily traffic free, so it was lovely to wander the narrow and historic streets to get a real feel for the city. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to us (even with my extensive research and planning) we had hit Valencia on a long weekend and that meant one of the things we were looking forward to exploring - the local market - was shut the entire time we were in Valencia. With that in mind we decided that a tapas crawl through the town was a good option.

We did find the city to be quite touristy, possibly because of the long weekend, but we loved visiting the beautiful Turia park. It’s a very unique shape due to the fact that it had been created from a river that flooded the town, and was then subsequently dammed. In its place they were going to make it a freeway but the locals complained and it was agreed to make it in to a park. What a great result!! There was a local softball match on that the boys enjoyed watching for a while and the park is used extensively by tourists and locals for all sorts of fun activities.

Valencia - the traditional home of the paella, so hunting out a good one was high on our list, and we managed to find a traditional seafood one in town. The boys enjoyed the fabulous oranges from the region, while I enjoyed another local fruit in the sangria - especially refreshing on a summers day.

We spent an afternoon at Malvarossa beach on the day of the Festival of St John. The significance of the festival is that locals have small bonfires on the beach while they party and then at midnight they jump over the fire 3 times for good luck - or 3 waves if they wish to go for a midnight swim. Due to the festival Nx it being a Sunday, the beach was incredibly busy while we were there and we could see people gearing up for the night ahead. The beach and water were beautiful and the boys loved having a swim - albeit colder than expected.

The following day we headed out of town on a wine tour to the Utiel and Requena region. On the way down we passed by the Moto GP track where the bikes race and also the town of Bunol, which is famous for an event known worldwide as La Tomatina. The most prevalent grape in the region is the Bobal grape that neither of us had heard of but in sampling some of the local product (and being starved
of good wine in India) we loved, purchased a bottle of the rose and headed off to our quaint guest house for the night in the town of Requena. Our guide took us to lunch where we sampled some chicken and rabbit paella (which was delicious) and a dish known as
Gazpacho, but not as you know it, it is Manchego Gazpacho which is more like a stew-like soup with unleavened bread that makes it taste like pasta . We all really enjoyed it and Max is insisting I learn how to make it.

The afternoon had just been sold to us as activities. We had absolutely no idea what the hell that meant but it was meant for the boys in most part. Our guide finally located “the dude” who was running the activities and we finally
learnt that it meant a series of zip lining, ropes courses, archery and paintball. I “volunteered” (read ‘felt obliged’) to lead the way and it became clear that Maxie was an absolute natural at all the zip lining and ropes courses and was having a wonderful time. Jack was a little like his Dad and didn’t find it as enjoyable
or as fun given our physical “limitations”. Thankfully it all ended well with some archery and paintball and the boys had a blast.

Our guest house in Requena had a fabulous private cave underneath which we enjoyed an afternoon drink in before a wander around the small town. The next morning our guide took us to another winery, Murviedro - that had built their cellar door/museum around the local caves under the town square where we were given the history of the way the locals used to use the clay pots called ‘tijana’s’ to make and store their wine and also the way the caves were utilised. We had a good sampling of the local wines and as a gift we were told we could keep the tasting glasses and also received a bottle of wine each (adults only). Great……..how the hell were we going to get two bottles of wine to Marrakech in a few hours time (carry on only...) and also, what were the chances we could get the two gifted wine glasses through the remaining two weeks and back to Bangalore? Another challenge accepted, and we were successful on all accounts.

Jack decided that he had had enough of spending time with us and didn't want to go to the wine museum (read in to that what you want but lets just say hormones were rife that day!) and he refused to stay with us. He wandered off in the small village and a lovely old local lady invited him in for a cold drink of water, as it was such a hot day and she was worried about him What a clown !!

And that, ends our time in the south of Spain, next we fly to Morocco !