Valencia & Cullera: opening 2012 travel season!

[To see the pictures of the events, click on the picture above]

The last weekend of January we had a three day weekend and friends of ours invited us to visit them in Cullera which is on the Mediterranean and is 30 mins from Valencia.  It is a three hour drive from Zaragoza to Valencia but the climate and temperature change is huge.  It was so nice to be at the Sea, being near water is something we miss a lot from our island life.  Anatolijus did his morning walks with Katia on the very long promenade and took some nice early morning pictures.  The other big attraction is the Aquarium in Valencia (largest in Europe) which is wonderful and a part of a new, very modern development by City of Art and Science by famous Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava.  The main highlights were the dolphin show where the trainers go into the water with the dolphins and get propelled through the water and placed back on the side of the pool.  The shark tank was huge and had a glass tunnel through it so we were face to face with a sand shark - very cool.  And for lunch we had Valenciano paella in the fancy restaurant that is surrounded by an aquarium wall.  We also got to see a walrus, beluga whale, penguins, turtles and tropical fish.  It is a very good aquarium that kept us engaged and interested for hours.

After finishing at the Aquarium we walked across the street to the City of Arts and Sciences (Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciencies).  The complex is made up of 4 main buildings including an Opera House, Science World, Imax Pavillion and Tennis Arena and the futuristic style is amazing.  Anatolijus took some amazing photos to capture the feeling; one would not be surprised to see a space ship from Star Trek landing in this area or the Intergalactic Federation housing its headquarters there..

Sunday was a lovely sunny day and after breakfast we visited the castle of Cullera which is high in the hills behind the town providing fabulous views of the water, beach and landscape behind.  Interestingly, in addition to oranges, rice is the other main crop from this region.  It is surprising to see acres of rice paddies having never been to a rice growing area and apparently this area produces 100 million kilos of rice per year.  We left the coast and drove towards Valencia to a nature reserve called Albufera.  It is a very large “lake” with lots of grass and ducks and other birds living here.  It is fresh water and we had a tour around it in a boat that then returned us to a beautiful restaurant where we had another special lunch with Seafood rice and Marques De Riscal Verdejo to match.  One of the great things about Spain is that there is always a playground for children so we were able to have a very leisurely time having a pre-lunch cervezita as the girls were all playing outside – fabulous.

On Monday we visited the center of Valencia to see their old town, cathedral and market.  Valencia has a lovely feel to it with all the palm trees and southern climate and its architecture and plazas are less grand than what we have seen in Madrid or Barcelona, but provide a cozy and very livable feeling.  We did find a Subway for lunch (don’t tell anyone!) so after a ‘footlong’ we drove back through the mountains up to the plain where Zaragoza is and after experiencing 14-16C we are now having clear cold and windy weather with the outside temperature, with windchill,  feeling like -10C today.