Day 09 - Granada -> Valencia

O_O ....4 more days and it's goodbye spain!

sadness.

breakfast at 730am. Rise and shine!
Today will be one of the longest coach drive from Granada to Valencia (home of oranges)...

Pitstop for lunch: shared a pasta with fish and hot soup with a bottle of lemonade.
And we bought some caramelised almonds to munch on the coach. $4.50euros for a pack.

after what seems to be a forever journey....our tour leader brought us to City of Arts & Sciences by Santiago Calatrava and Felix Candela!!! which is totally not on the itinerary!!!
WHAT A SPLENDID SURPRISE!!!

shadow of our coach...

L'Àgora -a covered plaza in which concerts and sporting events are held

El Museu de les Ciències Príncipe Felipe - an interactive museum of science but resembling the skeleton of a whale. It occupies around 40,000 m².

It is the most important modern tourist destination in the city of Valencia. The City of Arts and Sciences is situated at the end of the former riverbed of the river Turia, which was drained and rerouted after a catastrophic flood in 1957. The old riverbed was turned into a picturesque sunken park.

L'Umbracle — a landscaped walk with plant species indigenous to Valencia (such as rockrose, lentisca, romero, lavender, honeysuckle, bougainvillea, palm tree). It harbors in its interior The Walk of the Sculptures, an outdoor art gallery with sculptures from contemporary artists. (Miquel from Navarre, Francesc Abbot, Yoko Ono and others).

El Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía

L'Hemisfèric - an Imax Cinema, Planetarium and Laserium. The building is meant to resemble a giant eye, and has an approximate surface of 13,000 m².

How exhilarating the whole entire experience! we were so eager to leave the group and start walking and taking pictures of the place that after our tour leader gave us a time and venue to meet, we immediately ran off! and finally we met up with the rest at the souvenir shop then we realised that the tour leader was looking for us cos he wanted to change the meeting venue.

see how big this cast pan is!!! it can feed the 27 plus tour leader!!! and still have leftovers!

Dinner was provided and we were having Seafood Paella which originates from the city of Valencia! Most Spaniards consider Paella as their National Dish!

Valencians used seafood instead of meat and beans to make paella. Valencians regard this recipe as authentic as well. Later, however, Spaniards living outside of Valencia combined these two recipes and mixed paella was born.

Paella usually has a layer of toasted rice at the bottom of the pan called socarrat in Spain. This is considered a delicacy there and is essential to a good paella and I had lots of it because i had a second serving so the waitress gave me lots of the socarrat!

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Day 8 Spain
Day 10 Spain