Spain (Valencia)

Tuesday, August 25, 2009
The flight to Valencia from Madrid was only 1 ½ hours, we spent longer sitting at the airport waiting for our flight than we did actually on the flight!
We arrived nice and early – 7.30am and were greeted by some cooler weather – think it was low 30's but was a humid kind of heat but at least we weren’t sweating at that time of morning.
We caught the metro into town – surrounded by aussies and kiwis!
After a small dilemma about which direction to head from the metro exit (me saying we go right and Scott saying we go left – so we go left for about 10 -15 mins until Scott then says I never said this is the right way to go! So we turned around and went back the other way towards the hotel… stopping along the way at a café along the way for some yummy and cheap breakfast – again the language barrier caused difficulty but we pointed to the menu and got what we had ordered this time.
After checking in and showering we headed out to check out Valencia and all it had to offer, the temperature had climbed a little and it was warming up- was kinda muggy, not too sunny but still warm, reminded me of Auckland.
We walked 10 mins into the city centre from our hotel and stopped at the information centre to pick up some maps then wandered the first entry point of the city – it was like an entrance way to a castle. It was a giant concrete pillar type structure that we walked up the stairs to the top to get a great view of the city.
We wandered through Virgin Square but neither of use were to keen to pay to go inside the church so just peered in from the doorway, we wandered aimlessly through the little streets before jumping on a bus and heading down to the Science and Art area of Valencia. It was a real modernised man made area, bright white with high tower pillars and a huge museum and a man made pool (looked like a river) running all the way down. It was impressive! And certainly didn’t match the other area of town!
We then walked in the humid heat to the Americas Cup Village only to be disappointed that it was all closed off due to the Formula 1 being on the week before! So we trammed and metro’d back to the hotel for a siesta – something we were definitely getting into on our trip!
We headed out for dinner in the city – nothing to fancy, jus tapas and wine!

Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Up bright and early with the thousands of other crazy tourists to cram ourselves onto the 9am train from Valencia to Bunol – 30 minutes out of the city!
We arrived in Bunol and walked through the small town into the area of festivities.
The locals were all out on the closed off roads eating and drinking in large numbers. A lot of people were drunk and others were getting there. We got ourselves a beer and headed across the bridge to where the street was already jam packed full of people waiting in anticipation for the worlds largest food fight to begin. We were hours early so had time to kill – we managed to bump into Scotts friend and her sister and friends – which was good.
At midday the mayhem began – we were about half way down the tiny road, the houses which lined the road were covered in plastic and the people were standing on their little landings throwing buckets of water on top of us Before the food fight
When the first tomato truck came up the hill the people went crazy! Since there were thousands of us crammed into this small space we now had to make room for this big truck to come through! So everyone squished up against the wall – not good for the claustrophobia levels! The truck managed to stop right in front of us and dumped a huge pile of soft, soggy, smelly tomatoes at our feet and before it had time to drive further past us the people all jumped in! We could barely move but the tomatoes were flying! Some people were on the ground swimming in the tomatoes others were smashing others with the soft fruit!
I took a lot to the face and realised how disgusting it all actually was! The smell of it was the worst and then there was the salty taste – ewww its making me cringe just writing about it! Was great fun though, im not sure if Ive ever had permission to throw my food around like we did! I wish my brother had have been there and then we could have had the food fight we've always wanted!
After 4 truck loads of tomatoes, a t-shirt turned pink and a face/head full of seeds we decided to make our way up the hill back to the train station…. Stopping along the way to get rinsed off by the locals who kindly stood outside to hose the many hundreds of tourists and locals Action shot of the water
I took off my top layer of t-shirt and ditched my shoes as we headed up the hill – they no longer looked like the grey sneakers I had purchased for £5
The train back to Valencia was just as busy as the one out but this time everyone was chatting and smelled like old tomatoes mixed with sweat! GROSS!
We went back to the hotel where I washed my hair 3 times and still hadn’t gotten rid of the smell
We then headed into the city and met up with another one of Scott’s mate from Van Tour and we went and had paella and beers at a cheapish place, then went and had drinks at Virgin Square where there was dancing going on, on the stage set up in the middle of the square.
The walk back to the hotel was long and quiet - we kinda got lost and i got nervous cos the streets were so empty - and then we couldnt figure out where exactly we were - it was a mission indeed but we got there in the end!!

Thursday, August 27, 2009
Thursday was our last day in Valencia; we checked out and headed back into the city – stopping off at the park to see an impressive playground in the shape of Gulliver. Then we sort of wandered around the city seeing the parts we hadn't seen, we checked out the big markets and I was tempted to buy some fresh fruit or something yummy but bought some postcards instead. We then caught the bus down to the seaside and walked along the beach in the beautiful sunshine.
We checked our facebook and bank accounts online - as we had some time to kill until we needed to be at the train station.
Our train to Barcelona was at 5pm but was delayed so we had a bit of a wait in the ElStacion De Nord. I didn’t mind the 3 hour train ride north, it was quite comfy and we travelled up the coast so it was a scenic train ride.
We had a bit of a mission to find the hostel though, there were closures on the metro so we had to take a replacement bus, but we got there in the end – about 11pm and settled into our new accommodation – a hostel!

Bye Bye Valencia -  HELLLOOOO Barcelona!