Valencia: Second Time Around

At this point our 7-day cruise through the Mediterranean had begun. We set sail from Barcelona and the next day hit Valencia on the east coast of Spain.

I'll make another post later explaining everything about the cruise, though basically it was a week long, we stopped in Valencia, Palma de Mallorca, Marseille, Monaco (via Villafranche), Florence (via Livorno), and we got off in Rome.

Valencia is known for its City of the Arts and the Sciences, designed in large part by Valencian architect Santiago Calatrava. The City is an entertainment based cultural and architectural complex, and it's the most important modern monument in the Valencia. Among the structures in the City is Europe's largest aquarium, L'Oceanogràfic, which you see in the picture above.

Here we are in front of the Imax cinema, L'Hemisfèric. It's also a planetarium and laserium.

I am sitting on a sculpture here inside L'Umbracle, a landscaped walkway filled with plants and vegetation native to Valencia.

Rachel is seated here on the outside of L'Umbracle.

We're standing in the Plaza de la Virgen with the basilica in the background.

I had to show Mom and Rae what real horchata tastes like; so I brought them to an horchateria in the center of old Valencia. The cafes are really cool, with lots of mosaic tile depicting the harvest and growing of tigernuts (chufas) which are used in Spain to make the horchata.

Horchata originally comes from Valencia and it's thought that the tradition of using tigernuts to make the drink came from the Muslims who presides there from the 8th to the 13th century.

Horchata is sweet nutty type milk that tastes wonderful on hot days. It's typically served with a sweet bread rolls called fartones.