Valencia Day 2: Jordan

I woke up fairly early and headed out to once again explore the streets of Valencia, this time in the direction of el Mercado Central or the central market. I stopped at a pasteleria on the way to grab a quick breakfast and was told that they had a calabsita empanada. This is where the Spanish messed up in their language. Calabasita simply means squash, so me thinking that empanadas are usually sweet thought I was getting a pumpkin empanada to find that it actually had calabasitas, the little green squash. Now, of course it was good, it just threw me off guard to find my breakfast savory over sweet.

After breakfast I started in the direction of the Estacion del Norte and the old bullring. Sadly, the bullring is closed, but the glimpses I caught of the inside seemed really neat. After that, I started my trek towards the market. It was only a trek because I was in absolutely no hurry and decided that the map was useless. After wandering through stores, and churches and side streets I found the mercado. When I went inside I was completely overwhelmed.

There were booths full of fruits, vegetables, meats, cheeses, breads, salads, and seafood. It was huge and everything looked incredible. My first stop was to find me some famous Valencia oranges, which I did. I also grabbed a Valencia tomato (think of a beefsteak tomato heirloom cross) and some fresh mozzerela and headed back to the hostel for lunch.

After lunch I decided to go hunt down the mercado, the street version. I ended up in a little pueblo known as Benimaclet. The market had left, but the view was still there. There were tiny streets and quaint houses, shut up against the midday heat, with little balconies covered in flowers. The center of the pueblo had a little fountain and the streets were windy and narrow. Not long after my walk through Benimaclet I decided that it was just too hot. Hoping to avoid at least a little of the sun, I walked through the Jardin de Real or royal gardens towards the Museo de Bellas Artes, or fine arts museum. The museum created a perfect retreat from the heat, and the works of Spanish art were incredible and nearly tourist free.

After Bellas Artes, I walked back to the hostel, taking the scenic route through the riverbed garden. Feet aching, I stopped for a while on a nice shady grassy patch. One thing I love about the Spanish heat is that while it is scorching, if you walk into the shade somewhere the temperature automatically drops about 10 degrees.

I got to the hostel and took a little siesta, more of a do stuff that needs to be done on the internet kind of thing, and met my last roomate, Owen who happened to be a 6'7" civil engineer from Sydney Australia. Now that our room was complete, we could really enjoy ourselves.

The six of us made dinner and hung out in the common room until around 11:00 before deciding to go out for the night. We followed the crowd to a packed area of the city with people everywhere, sitting on benches, drinking at cafes and bars, and sitting on the sidewalk. We found a patch of empty space and sat down until it was finally late enough to hit a club. We found Radio City, said to be one of the more popular clubs in Valencia. It was ok, but we ended up having a good time anyway. We closed up the club wandering our way back to the hostel around 4:00 in the morning.

I don't know what it was about Valencia, but our little room of six had a great time, and got pretty close considering we were only there for a couple of days. I think it may have something to do with the fact that we were all traveling alone, and we all had similar ideas when it came to traveling and enjoying ourselves in Spain.

p.s. if you're ever in Spain, make the time to visit Valencia... all the charm of Spain with the stunning architecture of Paris and none of the obnoxious tourists!!!

Next up: Madrid