Bull Fighting Arena
Interesting architecture
This was a playground for kids, i think?... its huge, thats 3 photos right there!
Valencia is the most lighted up city in the world
The post office and our bus
Valencia at night
Sharon in the park
This wee girl had a random mother who talked to us in spanish and motioned for us to take a photo of her... so i did poor girl some stranger poking a camera in her face... but she was cute.After running through the dark early morning streetsof Barcelona in the rain with our heavy packs, we arrived at the meeting point and waited a half hour for the bus which of course was running late! We were amazing though, we were told to catch a taxi as it would take 40 mins but we did it in 20!
We then drove for half the day in pouring rain to arrive in Valencia just as the rain subsided, perfect! Having only two nights here we dropped our stuff in the hostel room (a sweet one with like 12 beds, hurrah!) and headed out to explore a bit of town. Valencia is slightly confusing for navigation as the maps are written in Spanish and the signs in Catelan... go figure! Despite this we found our way to a bull fighting arena where we were told there was a free museum. We are not so sure about the whole bull fighting thing but as it is a big part of the Spanish culture we thought we would learn a bit more.
The museum was very small and empty, so we walked in to two very bored looking receptionists, one gave us our own guided tour of the arena which was cool, especially as it was free. Then we were left to browse the museum ourselves. It was really interesting, it is a very brutal sport and not really the nicest way for a bull to go. They know this as they are always trying to brush it over by saying that the bull has 2-6 years of cushy life on nice farmland beforehand and then they donate the meat to orphanages (i can only imagine how tender it must be!). The fights are now being met most of the time by anti-bull-fighting demonstrations and the stadiums have red paint splashed all around the outside.
The next day we did a free tour (they are called free tours but you kinda have to pay a tip so its not really free!) It was okaybut not the best we have done but it did show us some things we could go and look at afterwards like the old silk market, a beautiful building with an amazing wooden roof that has been designated a UNESCO world heritage sight. Like Barcelona it has some crazy architecture that is very post modern looking, inpressive but different. Near any historical building they have made little bronze replicas that have a brail description so that blind people can feel the shape of the buildings. A really neat idea but our guide told us that in mid summer when its over 40 degrees these little models made out of dark bronze get ridiculously hot and burn your hands!
The city used to have a river running right through it but after a massive flood they diverted the river around the outside of town and planned to turn the old river bed into a motorway, the citizens didnt agree and protested by planting thousands of trees. The council gave up and now the city has a really nice park running right through.
After 2 nights of little sleep in our 12 bed dorm we headed for Madrid.
The trip took us through some amazing and beautiful desolate landscapes that looked hot dry and dusty with very sparse vegetation and as it got a bit greener we arrived in Madrid.
Madrid was a bustling city with some great art galleries and a lot of nice cheap shops for Sharon to get her shopping on! The art galleries were free after 6pm so we did two rushed visits seeing some of Picaso`s major works and many more amazing pieces by artist whose names i cant remember.
Like the other Spanish cities Madrid had a bunch of really nice and spacious parks. We were there over a weekend so the parks were full of families and buskers and had a really neat atmosphere, so when not shopping or looking at art we were chilling in the parks people watching.
We then drove for half the day in pouring rain to arrive in Valencia just as the rain subsided, perfect! Having only two nights here we dropped our stuff in the hostel room (a sweet one with like 12 beds, hurrah!) and headed out to explore a bit of town. Valencia is slightly confusing for navigation as the maps are written in Spanish and the signs in Catelan... go figure! Despite this we found our way to a bull fighting arena where we were told there was a free museum. We are not so sure about the whole bull fighting thing but as it is a big part of the Spanish culture we thought we would learn a bit more.
The museum was very small and empty, so we walked in to two very bored looking receptionists, one gave us our own guided tour of the arena which was cool, especially as it was free. Then we were left to browse the museum ourselves. It was really interesting, it is a very brutal sport and not really the nicest way for a bull to go. They know this as they are always trying to brush it over by saying that the bull has 2-6 years of cushy life on nice farmland beforehand and then they donate the meat to orphanages (i can only imagine how tender it must be!). The fights are now being met most of the time by anti-bull-fighting demonstrations and the stadiums have red paint splashed all around the outside.
The next day we did a free tour (they are called free tours but you kinda have to pay a tip so its not really free!) It was okaybut not the best we have done but it did show us some things we could go and look at afterwards like the old silk market, a beautiful building with an amazing wooden roof that has been designated a UNESCO world heritage sight. Like Barcelona it has some crazy architecture that is very post modern looking, inpressive but different. Near any historical building they have made little bronze replicas that have a brail description so that blind people can feel the shape of the buildings. A really neat idea but our guide told us that in mid summer when its over 40 degrees these little models made out of dark bronze get ridiculously hot and burn your hands!
The city used to have a river running right through it but after a massive flood they diverted the river around the outside of town and planned to turn the old river bed into a motorway, the citizens didnt agree and protested by planting thousands of trees. The council gave up and now the city has a really nice park running right through.
After 2 nights of little sleep in our 12 bed dorm we headed for Madrid.
The trip took us through some amazing and beautiful desolate landscapes that looked hot dry and dusty with very sparse vegetation and as it got a bit greener we arrived in Madrid.
Madrid was a bustling city with some great art galleries and a lot of nice cheap shops for Sharon to get her shopping on! The art galleries were free after 6pm so we did two rushed visits seeing some of Picaso`s major works and many more amazing pieces by artist whose names i cant remember.
Like the other Spanish cities Madrid had a bunch of really nice and spacious parks. We were there over a weekend so the parks were full of families and buskers and had a really neat atmosphere, so when not shopping or looking at art we were chilling in the parks people watching.
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