Valencia

Valencia, Spain.  Before moving to Spain Jimmy and I had seen a program on TV that mentioned Valencia, it talked of how they had Europe's largest aquarium and that this city was the best place to eat Paella a Spanish rice dish.  Since moving here, it's always been in the back of our heads that we would like to visit Valencia.  The locals said it was a nice city, but one two days there was enough, that there wasn't much to do. 
We finally made plans to go over a weekend that the kids were off a couple of days from school.  By the time the trip came about we weren't that excited about it.  People kept telling us that 4 days was going to be too much, and we had a lot going on.  Jimmy was in between business trips and we're getting close to Christmas when we'll be going home for three weeks. Our trip was 11/1/12 day after Halloween, so we were out late and our flight was early.  So when it came to it we just weren't all that excited.
Thursday we woke up early and made it to the airport.  Everything was so smooth, got to Valencia and got our car rental and or GPS wouldn't work.  So we drove around a bit and found the beach.  Pulled over to let the kids play and look for some lunch.  The beach here is very nice, very fine soft sand, the waves were 10-12 feet high, and there were climbing structures and parks nearby for kids to play on.  After the beach Jimmy got the GPS back up and working and we made our way to the Cathedral down town.  We walked through it, but they had most of it roped off, it looks like they were getting ready for some kind of concert.  Landon found a hallway that led to where you could climb the tower.  We decided to go.  Up to the top of the bell tower, 210 steps, Landon and Emma made it all the way up and down those steps.  Right as we got to the top the bell rang 3 times.  We enjoyed the view from up top and went back down and found a beautiful little plaza where the kids chased birds for a bit.  We then went to check into our apartment.  We've found a great website that has beautiful apartments for weekends.  Very nice modern apartments usually in great locations.  We enjoyed our stay there and that night Jimmy went to the store and brought back stuff that we could make for dinner. 

 

Friday we got up and went to the zoo.  Another wonderful zoo in Spain.  We loved the zoo in Madrid, but this one was even better.  It was just as beautiful, but flowed nicely, and had a lot more fun things about i.  We enjoyed the lemur enclosure that allowed you to be in the cage with the lemurs.  Most enclosures had several animals in them, not as much of the one here one there.  We even had a beautiful lunch by the giraffes. Then we went back to apartment for a rest and then out for the night to a park Jimmy had heard about from a co-worker.  It was a called Gulliver's Park, we weren't sure what to expect.  In Valencia there is a park the runs through the town, it's the old river that use to run though the city, it flooded the city so they re-routed the river around the city and turned the old river bed into a beautiful park, called The Dry River Park.  Gulliver's Park is from the story of Gulliver's Travels, it has a large structure of Gulliver laying down on the ground, tied down and you are the miniature people.  You can climb up all over him and there are slides all down him too.  We stayed there for over an hour playing, we had a lot of fun.  Even Clara was going down the slides by herself (ones that were 15 feet high easily).  Found a nice restaurant for dinner and called it a night.


Saturday we went to the science museum in the morning and the aquarium in the afternoon.  The science museum was great.  There was plenty of things for everyone of all ages.  It was perfect for Landon's age group and older.  But the girls enjoyed it too.  Emma's favorite part was the baby chicks hatching. Landon's favorite part was probably the football science or the Marvel Comic area.  And Clara was just happy to be out and about, she hardly sat in her stroller the whole time, she loved just being a big kid.  After the museum we took a break back at the apartment. Then back out to see the largest aquarium in Europe.  We were a bit short on time here we had just over 2 hours before it closed when we got there.  We got to see everything and enjoy it all, but we didn't have much time to go slow and absorb everything.  We loved the areas that were the Mediterranean, Tropical, and the shark tank.  They had a dolphin show that wasn't very exciting and the Arctic area was slightly disappointing.  Overall it was very nice.  After we were done we headed back to the apartment for dinner and a movie.  Jimmy found an Asian noodle place and we rented Gulliver's Travels with Jack Black.  After going to the Gulliver's Park the kids really enjoyed the movie (it was pretty cute).

Sunday came and we were not ready to head back home. We packed up, checked out of the apartment and went back to the beach. We found a different park pretty close to the water front and had a good time.  Then took a stroll down the beach.  Then back over to Gulliver's Park, a quick lunch and then off to the airport.  We really enjoyed this city and hope someday to make it back.  Thanks Valencia for being a beautiful enjoyable city!