Visiting
Valencia, Spain/ Carlos Pueblo
After
getting off the cruise in Barcelona, I skillfully made three bus transfers,
from the
ship to Columbus Square subway, took subway to Barcelona train
station, took
a main line train TALGO to Valencia. In Spain Eurail pass, in
addition to
the pass, you must make reservation with 10.35 euro for AVE;
6.75 euro
for main line TALGO; no reservation and fee for the other. I made a
3 nights
stay in the city. The train passed through the Mediterranean coast,
Spanish farm,
and 3 ½ hours later I reached at this ancient city kingdom.
Various crops
are in the farms with ditches visible to supply irrigation. The
City presents
the beautiful train station and the building for the visitor. I
followed the
instruction and walked towards River Turia direction. According
to the tip
touring guide that most of my activity is within the area close to my
hostel, two
big squares, the Cathedral, Museum, University, business area,
parks, huge
market etc.
The old
River Turia is located on the north side of my hostel, la square de la
Virgen area.
Since the river changed route to the sea, the city has converted
the river
bed to be a park, with at least two soccer fields, From the size of this
park, I
could estimate how big of the original river with business on both sides.
One of the
bridges across, the city arranges two rolls of blooming flowers. I
took some
pictures and a restaurant owner identified the flowers as rosa
pitimini,
small roses.
The next
morning, I went back to the old river park for a morning walk. One of
the remaining
river side tower, tower of Serranos, is
here. The two impressed
rolls of
small roses are actually accumulated by many small pots inside many
steel rings
so that the park can replace it according to different blooming seasons.
I did not
walk across to the other side of river instead I walked back to the squares
to view more
of the city beauty, the Cathedral, Museums, markets etc., before I
joined a
group tour at 11 am.
Again, my
tip tour guide was a female with very good English. She had her own way
to explain
some part of the history which made me doing some research after I came
back from
Spain. She explained why there was a sing of Davis star on the front of the
Cathedral
which was built during the Re-conquest era. She recommended a small
restaurant at
the end of the tour for lunch. I ordered the popular paella, a sea foods
fried rice
from Valencia, which reminded me the paella I had on the cruise.
While I was
doing the laundry on the terrace, I listened to a group of street artists to
rehearse.
They were from Liverpool, England and came to Valencia for luck. They would
perform on
different spots at night either for business or police reasons to re-locate.
I also met a
lady from Bulgaria who was trying her luck in Spain. We had had a good
conversation
for her country which I hoped to do some more research and to write
about it in
the future.
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