A weekend in Valencia
by Teresa Booker on 16/01/09 at 6:00 pm
In June 2007 myself and a friend went on a girly weekend away to Valencia. I had been to Barcelona a couple of times before and fancied somewhere different, and although we didn’t know much about the citywe found a cheap flight and thought we would try it out!
Our Easyjet flight landed around 8pm and we took a taxi transfer to our hotel, the four star Hesperia Parque Central. A quick flick through the info in the hotel room told us that the Barrio Del Carmen district was the place to go in the evenings, just a quick taxi ride away. The streets were buzzing at that time on a Saturday night and we were struck by the look and atmosphere of the place, all cobbled streets and old churches, beautifully lit up. We hadn’t imagined it would be anything like this!
There was an abundance of restaurants to choose from and since we had a few problems deciphering the menus we just picked one that looked busy and walked in. We quickly realised that we should have bought a phrase book with us as none of the waiters spoke English and we had no idea what we were ordering! We thought we would be safe with the most expensive thing on the menu, it said something like “selecciones” so we thought it would be an assortment of different dishes – but no, it turned out to be a huge plate of cheese! So although we ended up in hysterics after that it still left us very hungry, so my big tip if you don’t speak Spanish is definitely to take a phrasebook!
The next day was spent wandering around the old town, visiting the cathedral and the Mercado Central (central market) together with various stops on the way at the numerous little cafes lining the streets and plazas. In the late afternoon we headed down to the America’s Cup port for a few drinks in the last of the sunshine before dinner. Unfortunately, it being a Sunday, most of the restaurants on the beachfront were closed with the only one open packed full of other tourists in search of a good Paella – like us!
On our final day we took a 10 minute taxi ride to the City of Arts and Sciences. The modern architecture of the place was incredible – very futuristic and a total contrast to the old town. We spent a while wandering through the gardens before paying the entrance fee of around 20 Euros to get into L’Oceanografic, a huge park and aquarium featuring all sorts of marine wildlife from penguins to sharks. Children would definitely enjoy this place the most, although we still had a great time.
That evening we were lucky enough to find a bar in town which had a traditional flamenco show on – something which is definitely a must-see if you can.
I think that a three day break was definitely enough to see most of the sights in Valencia, and if I were to go again I would probably pick a hotel located right in the old town. It certainly surprised me how beautiful the city is and with the beaches right on the doorstep it definitely makes it a good alternative to the more obvious choices of Madrid and Barcelona.
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