Valencia..the river flooded once, so they changed the course of the river.

Thanks to Mario and Vinaya, we had a wonderful time in this city that knows how to survive

Science Complex and the Aquarium

Spoon Bills and many other birds in a wonderful aviary

Sydney Opera house? No, the science complex

Baby Beluga posing for us...I really enjoyed this exhibit

Baby Shark taking a ride on Mama..

Music building..

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We took a day trip to Valencia today. Valencia is about 200 km south from here, on the Mediterranean coast. The tour company PLANA runs hundreds of tours. In the morning, around 6:30am, their 80 passenger white buses were prowling the city in the dark and picking up people standing around by the roadside. It was quite surreal. There were different buses for different language tours and ours was English, Spanish and French ( Somehow we got rid of French half way through the tour or they defected).

Remember Valencia Oranges? They grow them here and they are all over. The drive to the city was very present, orange trees, vegetables, fruit trees and ever present olive trees growing on the mountains and in the valley. The city and the province have been prosperous since the prehistoric times and even though there were wars ( latest one with French) and changes from Romans to Moors to Christians, the city  managed to survive them all and now is a great mixture of new and old.

Big attraction today is the architecture. The latest science complex is beautiful, functional and huge. We saw just a part of it, only the oceanography section. It is the best aquarium in Europe and it is arranged very nicely in beautiful buildings and has a large collection. I enjoyed the arctic section where they keep Beluga whales and other one that I liked was the aviary. But, I have to say that Monterey bay aquarium has much more collection (breeding, research and educational) facilities of Marine life in general. Valencia  is more for the show of buildings and architecture while Monterey is more educational and research oriented.

After the science complex, we went to the old town which came with narrow streets,  cathedral, Chapel and other old buildings. The difference was that there were equally beautiful new buildings, fountains and plazas done by famous architects.

Bullet holes in the tower walls from the French war...

Neptune fountain

Stadium

Overall I think, it was a mistake not to plan a two night stay in Valencia.

 I am very impressed by how beautiful the cities are, how the infrastructure ( roads, trains, water , power etc) is so well planned , how there is plenty of fresh healthy food everywhere and how everything looks so clean and well preserved. The only thing is, they smoke a lot….

Good night after another beautiful day in Spain with friends..