Valencia, Spain was our favorite port by far. I think it is because we had an awesome tour guide on our tour of the city.
Derek's co-worker, Cindy Wheeler booked this private tour for 25 people and invited us along. Our tour guide, Suzie, was half Dutch, half Spanish - that is probably why she was so good :)
We took a bus to the City of Arts and Sciences which is an architectural phenomenon. The majority of the building constructed were made of concrete and then covered in white ceramic. One of the structures was made to look like the human eye - maybe you can tell from the pictures. In almost all of the buildings, there is no man-made light because there are so many windows in the buildings. We didn't take a tour of the whole facility, mostly just the outside. At the top of one of the buildings, there was a display of sundials and different time keepers for seasons, months, years, days, hours, etc. It was so interesting to think back to when this method of time keeping was developed.
 |
| Derek winking - this is the building that looks like an eye. The supports in the window are supposed to resemble eyelashes. |
From the City of Arts and Sciences, we headed to the old part of downtown. Our first stop was a Horchateria where we enjoyed Horchata (Spanish horchata is different than Mexican horchata) and a sweet bun. I added a cappuccino to my order too :)
 |
| Valencia is the only city in Spain that still allows bull fighting. It happens in this arena only 4 times per year. We missed in by just a few days - the next one was scheduled for July 27. |
 |
| These were some amazing ornate marble sculptures. |
 |
| Derek turning a really big door knob. |
 |
| When royalty living here, this sculpture would face inward when they were home, in a sense, guarding them, and when they were out, she would face out. When we walked in, she did not turn. |
 |
| This was an old pharmacy turned into a boutique selling only Valencia made items. Here we tasted some Valencia made wine made from Valencia oranges. |
After eating, we walked around the downtown area for a bit and ended up in one of the biggest markets in Spain. There was a section for meats and cheeses, for fruits and vegetables and a section for seafood. We found some interesting offerings in each section. In the meats and cheeses area there were whole, skinned, rabbits that included eyes along with scalded pigs and ham hocks (prosciutto types I think); in the seafood area there was a dried shark and little pools of eels that the sellers would swipe their hands in to make them squirm when tourists were lingering near them. A little unnverving... Our tour guide had set up a special area there for us to have some champagne with some cheese, sausage, and prosciutto from one of the vendors.
We stopped at another café to have little open faced sandwiches again with meats and cheeses on top along with sangria. There were all types. I had one with cream cheese, kiwi and another fruit and one with cheese and ham. Our friends had ordered Spanish paella to share which was also very good.
After seeing the market, we headed to walk to some cathedrals and some old plazas in the area. At one of the cathedrals, there was a bronze replica of the cathedral right in front that was built for blind people to feel the building and how it was built. There was a braille explanation of the building so it would be described as they felt the structure.
One castle that we walked by was right along a square that dated back to 138 BC. There is a picture of a doorway and if you look to the right of the doorway, there is a stone with scars on it - these scars were made from the sharpening of axes that were used for beheadings in the square.
Our last stop of the day was at Café de las Horas where we had more tapas and more sangria. We enjoyed "sausages from hell" (the name in Spanish was much cooler sounding but I forget it), braised potatoes with a spicy sauce, fried cheeses with a raspberry sauce, shrimp in garlic butter, and baguettes. The sangria at all these places was just fantastic! We learned how to give a traditional Spanish toast - Up, Down, Center, In the throat (I forget the Spanish words again) -with a popular dessert liquor. We loaded back on to the bus and headed back to the boat. No wonder it was my favorite tour with all the food and sangria :)
