Valencia

2 posts in one day shock.

This city (3rd biggest in Spain, apparently) is pretty damn nice. Kinda regretting booking a hostel in Barcelona for tomorrow now..

I´ve been doing my usual walking until I can barely stand again today. I didn´t quite manage to get a glimpse of the apparent ´real´ Holy Grail, but certainly saw plenty of other things.

For one there was the Mercado Central (central market). You can discount all previous statements made about bustling markets... this one tops them all. The place is a permanent fixture by the look of it, looks like an old church - pictures to follow at some point.

There was everything imaginable (maybe more) under that roof, anything that walked or flew over the ground or grew in it. Quite an overwhelming place and another thing I would´ve taken more advantage of if i were staying here longer. As you walked in one entrance it was a challenge to find it again, without going out of another door, walking around the building, and going in again.

Another place I took a look around was Valencia´s bullring, right next to the train station. As I missed the last opportunity to see a genuine bullfight in Seville by a day, I was taking what I could get. What I got was a free tour of the bullring, with just 2 other people. It was ok, a little underwhelming as you´d imagine.. was missing a big four-legged animal with huge horns..., but it killed a few minutes.

Next I went over to the Cathedral, each Spanish town seems to have a few hundred each. This one had a huge display of the Virgin Mary inside though, almost a moving sight, were it not for my Religious (lack of) persuasion. Lots of the people sitting infront of it were drawing crosses on themselves and saying a quiet prayer. I didn´t take any pictures as I didn´t want to be disrespectful, it was clearly a very spiritually significant place.

Now after my all-day trundel who should be in the same dorm room as me, but my childhood friend, Jenny! Couldn´t believe the coincidence here. Was really good to see a face from home, and forced me to look back on my accomplishments so far. After my late notice attempt at a meeting in Madrid, this was really cool and unexpected. Going to go for Tapas later.

Train to Barcelona at 10 in the morning.



i - The Valencian bullring, bang next door to the train station. Complete with various stalls in the outer walls
ii - The Mercado Central, didn´t take any photos inside, would´ve felt a right apricot
iii - Impressive display on the wall of the Plaze de La Virgen. I´ve been told it´s made out of flowers or something?¿
iv - Sevillian train station view, about 8pmish
v - One of many views of the Granadian landscape
vi - A perfect example of the spiralling streets hugging onto the hills. Granada again.
vii - ix - Amazing graffiti along the river in Seville.
x - Some paella pans in Valencia, with an old man as a scale guide

One Month point

Hi hi

I arrived at Valencia this morning at a brutal 5:30 in the morning and have just settled into today´s hostel with some free coffee and free internet.

First off, Granada was probably the most beautiful place I´ve been to so far (Porto is trailing behind a bit now)... got some amazing pictures of the valley, the Alhambra, Sierra Nevada, etc, that I´ll upload in due course.

I stayed in a very quiet, very cheap hostel that was more like a guesthouse. There were two others there - Tzvi, the Israel-born Californian and Dennis the Australian dude, who´s lived in London for a year.

Very laid back and was just what I needed. Some awesome views were waiting for me from the square near the hostel as its right atop a hill, across from the Alhambra. Because of this it was a little touristey around the place - tour groups wandering around and such (one guide sounded like Borat "and here we see the Alhambra - is nice") and the Menu del Dias weren´t amazing. There were also good parts to this - the Gypsies playing Flamenco guitar at most points throughout the day in the square and selling handmade trinkets to people.

I´m now at the point where I definitely feel superior to these tour groups flocking past. Tzvi made a good point. He hasn´t brought a camera on his trip and thinks that you take your surroundings in as memories more if you don´t photograph everything. What the people in these tour groups tend to do is spend more time taking pictures, than letting it sink in. I think I´m in the middle somewhere, I´ve taken some 400ish photos so far - not bad I think, for 1 month´s travel.

Another point floating around, was that its best to enjoy the view (or whatever) first, then take a picture, rather than the other way around. The tendency can be to just walk upto something and snap away, rather than taking time to fully appreciate it first.

Well, my first day in Granada Tzvi, Dennis and Vlad (he was only there for that night) went for a walk up a hill and looked at some Gypsy caves and took loads of pictures of the landscape - was a laugh. I was even tempted to have a little hash, that Dennis had bought, that smelt of ass. We then wandered off for some Tapas.

Next day was the Alhambra. I didn´t manage to go the back way, as I couldn´t decipher the map enough. Still enjoyed it though... but I don´t know if I enjoyed the building more, or the views. Not that it matters.

Those 4 days went far too quickly anyway, but I was glad I found the hostel.

As for Valencia, I´m only just waking up now from the train journey... didn´t scrape together much sleep, so I´ve not seen much yet. Hell, its only just gone 9. Anywho I´ve read Paella is meant to be the very best around here. Also, that the Holy Grail is kept in a museum nearby, the only one recognised by the Vatican, will try and check that out. Aside from that I reckon I´m only going to stay here the one night, then head straight to Barcelona.

I´m now reading Catch-22, and am stuck lugging 2 books around...

No more pictures yet, folks.