Sew Not My Day!

Day 10 - Mediterranean Cruise - Valencia, Spain

Well, life got in the way this week. My MIL is in the hospital and it's all hands on deck!

ANYWAY!! Day 10!

Our first view of Valencia. And every single one of us were wondering if the Ark of the Covenant was hidden in one of these containers. They were as far as the eye could see at this port!

And here was the view on the bow of the ship! See the shore over there? We were hoping we'd have time to get there that day, but nope.

That's ok! We saw a LOT, as you will too in this post.

OH! See the train towards the bottom loaded down with all the brand new cars? Wowza!

Ken was in his element! Trains and cars! Personally I was intrigued by the yacht on the other side.

And then Valencia proper.

and again.

We disembarked and took a shuttle bus to the main road where we caught a taxi to take us to the Old City. Not too far away but just enough we didn't want to walk it and worry about time.

And then we walked and explored.

Check out the pedestrian signs on the sidewalk! You don't have to make eye contact with ANYONE!!!

Keep your eyes down! Just kidding. I just thought that was cool.

Lots of old style buildings on the outskirts of Old City.

And check out the tile mosaic around the Horchateria! OOH! and Hard Rock cafe right next to them! It was too early in the day for them to be open, so we pressed on.

The ancient buildings were fascinating!

And try and read this! No CLUE what year it says. If I'd done better at Latin in highschool, maybe.

Beautiful little streets!

And we found another market!

So many things that we'd never see at a local farmers market or the grocery store, but here is common place.

I thought these were the best leeks I'd ever seen! Search my blog for the Leeks in cream sauce recipe! MMMM!!!

All the fruit was so huge. The strawberries! Oh my.

Even the ceiling was intriguing!

and whatever these were.

Paella in all type of varieties.

and desserts everywhere in time for Valentine's day!

The brown mushroom shaped ones below were tiramisu.

I trailed after these guys and bought more souvenirs when I saw the opportunity.

Croissants! huge!

and then the Fish Market area! WOW. So many crazy looking marine life available for purchase!

Squid.

Live eels! You pick the one you want and the guy behind would smack it on the counter to stun it before chopping off it's head. Then wrap it up in paper for you.

I didn't buy any. But Ken got a video.

Lots of other legit seafood. I took a lot of pictures for Leon as he was wanting to do seafood for a whole month if he could.

And I think THIS guy or maybe the one around the corner saw me taking pictures and came out from behind angry that I was taking pictures and to yell at me that it will cost 2 euro for a picture. whoops!

I think we came across as TOO touristy!

Then back in the sun!

Ken and I sat in the courtyard while Ruth Ann and Teresa finished their shopping in the market.

I found a yarn shop and snapped a pic for Maddy. I didn't have enough space in my luggage to bring her back enough of anything for a project but looking back now, one skein would have been cool. Oh well! Reason for another trip there!

and we walked on. Beautiful place to live and work!

In the Plaza La Reina, there were living statues. People dressed up like a statue and they just stand there! If you drop some coins in their bucket, they'll dance for you! At least this one did. I tried it out. :)

Later there was another living statue of a man all in an aluminum foil costume riding a bike. If you dropped money in, he'd talk or peddle. You can JUST see him in the center of the pic.

Below in St. Catherine's church in the corner of the plaza

and we didn't know what kind of festival was going on that day in the church, but these beautifully dressed people all walked in and later, walked out and posed for pictures.

The Ale Hop was a great franchise where you can get little needed and cheap things like a chapstick or sunglasses. Nothing that said Valencia. I just really liked the cow.

Another look at the plaza from a different angle.

There was a chocolate shop there, the 1885 shop with 12 generations of the family running it since 1885. Yummy! I picked up a sampler pack for the kids. The guy working there was happy to pose for me but when I asked him where he was on the family tree admitted that he wasn't part of the family.

oh.

We all had gotten from snacks from various places and we sat and ate while people watching. Ruth Ann fed French fries to the birds and it got scary as more and more birds started coming down to us.

There was a big metal box of a restroom in the plaza that was free to use. And because it was free, all toiletries had been stolen even the toilet seat and the door lock broken. yay. So Ken guarded the door and let us use it quick.

And more of those beautiful costumes!

Then we started walking back to the ship. Ruth Ann was our GPS on her phone and she guided us back.

What beautiful buildings!

The whole way back, I kept my eyes open for a fabric shop. Wouldn't that be a great souvenir?

No such luck. Actually I did see one but we were already a block past it and we didn't know if we'd make it back in time anyway. So ONWARD!

And a Victory Arch!

We were walking near all this traffic and one of us noticed stairs going down right next to the street to a pedestrian walkway, going OUR way! So YES PLEASE!

And what a gorgeous walkway it was! The only real traffic were bicyclists and other walkers.

And we had some fun graffiti to look at.

Just up on the other side of that wall and up 10 feet is the street. Our side of the wall was much prettier.

Don't you think?

I found these little birds in the grass and zoomed in on them. Leon found that they're related to the parrot.

The walkway ended around this pooled area. Someone had set up a birthday party in that roofed area and were waiting for the kids to arrive. We did NOT crash the party.

There were stairs on the left of the pool so we headed back up to the main level

and back in the streets.

It never occurred to me that Valencia oranges came from Valencia Spain! All the streets were lined with orange trees!

I sat outside a grocery store while a couple of us went inside. The shop had a counter outside loaded down with oranges. I witnessed a man walking by, grab one and slip it into his pocket without breaking a stride. I thought, "Um all these trees are here and you had to steal from a little shop?"

I'm sure there are stiffer laws for grabbing fruit off the trees. Who knows?!

We were in need of restrooms and there were none for free! Or that we could find. So we ducked into this tiny restaurant and found that they had one! yay! So we had some more food and it was delicious!

Ruth Ann had something that required a white sauce in a bottle. She turned it over to squirt some out and the lid came off flooding her plate. The guy made her new food!