Valencia part dos

 We stopped in Valencia on our first cruise 4 years ago, and booked onto one of the cruise ships excursions to see the main town, which is about 5 miles from the port. That trip cost us £15 each I think,and we did manage to take in most of the main sightsin the city, the cathedral, the central market, the Serranos towers, the town hall square etc, but the bullring did elude us. We did get to see it from the outside, but were unable to get inside as Spain were playing Germany in the Davies cup, there on the day we were in port. So that was our main aim today, but instead of booking the excursion we opted to catch the free shuttle bus from the boat to the port entrance (about 1.5 miles) and then catch the number 4 bus from the bus stop outside the port which cost us €1.50 each way. We got off right in the middle of the town and walked the 10 minutes to the bull ring. We were so disappointed to find out that the bull ring doesn't open on Mondays, so once again we haven't been able to go inside to have a look around, not even the interesting little museum around the side was open today, though I did notice the admission price of €2 had not change since we visited 4 years ago.





Perdita was glad we had gone there as we stumble on her favourite shop right next door to the museum, and if we do come again, I might sign up for the bull fighting school next door as well.


Valencia is a city of nearly largest's, it has the 4th largest port in Europe, one of the largest bullrings in Spain and the Second largest  indoor market behind Barcelona. The Market was to be our next stop, as I wanted to refresh my memory of just how big it was and the range of products in sold, it really is huge. If any one has ever visited Bolton Market ( for that I am truly sorry) it looks like a corner shop compared to this one.







Unfortunately the fresh fish stalls had closed for the day when we got there, hense no photos.

On the way back to the bus stop to catch the bus back to the port we had a bit of spare time, so decided to try one of the many eateries, around the market, and as Valencia is reputedly the birth place of Paella, we opted to try some. Usually if you ask for Paella at a resteraunt in Spain there is a minimum number of people you can order for, and when you do get it, it tends to have been pre made and then either fridged or frozen. The one we tried today however was freshly made to order which is why it took 30 minutes to arrive in an authentic paella pan. As Perdita doesn't eat meat I chose a monkfish, cuttlefish and artichoke  paella, which I must admit was very tasty even to a non veggie.


Whilst i have a little time before I loose internet I thought I would show you a few photos of our home for the last week and for the next week, but please accept my apologies for the resident bed tester, she is in the room every afternoon " apparently just testing the bed for comfort". I don't know how I would sleep well if it wasn't for her prior approval.






Pongo and Perdita signing off for today.
 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Get off your horse and drink your milk.

Image
 Today we stopped of at Cartagena(not the one in Columbia), I say this because every time I Google things to do in Cartagena the Columbian Cartagena comes up first. We have been here before and wanted to try something new and as a special treat for Perdita ( I have been promising her one for weeks if she walked up the rock on Gibraltar)  which she did on Thursday with lots of puffing and panting, dirty looks and even a few choice words. She even said she hated me( remember how that feels Bare), and for a time I think she really meant it. I had booked us in to go to an equestrian centre, to go for a hack( I am a novice, though Perdita is quite proficient) I had researched for this and we had to catch the Alsa L14 bus at the bus terminus, so when we got off the ship we got a map and the lady giving them out marked on the map the route we should take.We set of and arrived there in good time to catch said bus. Unfortunately when it arrived at the stop it just drove straight past us without
Read more

Chocolate, rum and a handmade cigar.

Image
            Today's destination is Amber Cove in the Domican Republic, we had booked to go diving down some waterfalls, however my knee has been playing up for the last  couple of days and although the first part of the trip was by coach, the last 40 minutes involve quite a severe up hill climb, so I reluctantly gave in to Perdita's sensible side, and we changed our trip to a more sedate Flavours of Puerta Plata (meaning silver port) tour. The tour started at 12.30 pm and 1st stage involved a coach trip to a local farm,out in the sticks, where we were treated to a taster of 3 rums, all from the same company(Brugal), one a young dark rum, another aged in American whiskey casks and a white rum, the aged one had been aged for 10 years and was obviously the  best and being a rum drinker I bought a bottle to enjoy once I got back home with friends. Whilst at the farm,we were provided with our lunch which was a buffet if rice and a beef and chicken stew with potatoes, sweet potatoes,
Read more

Houston we have a problem!!!!

Image
          The next day was the half way point of our adventure, so dictated we were back at Port Canaveral for the swap over of new passengers and crew, it also meant that everyone on board had to get off the ship to go through the American immigration checks, this included all the crew members as well. Some of the life boat had been lowered, though I am not sure if that was for planned maintenance or do the immigration officers could do spot checks for stowaways or maybe a bit of both.           We had booked ourselves on a full day excursion to  Cape Canaveral Space Center, which was the most expensive trip we had booked at over £100 each, so we had high expectations. I deliberately left out one thing in earlier blogs, thinking it would fit into this nicely. On our 1st day whilst we were leaving Port Canaveral we were lucky enough to witness a space launch, which was amazing and probably the highlite of the holiday so far. The lauch should have taken place the prevois day
Read more