Our travelling pace has slowed considerably and arriving late afternoon on the edge of Valencia we opted to wait until the morning to get the bus in and explore.
We were blessed by a bright day and chose to wander by Gulliver’s Park and the central district, seemingly circling the Central Market.
The streets around El Carmen district are colourful with street art and small shops. A large wedding was taking place with glamorous guests pouring out into the square for photos, and a few yards down the roads we heard cannon fire, something that startled a couple of women causing them to run… unaware of the wedding and instinctively fearing the worse.
We had lunch at Aloha – a small vegan take away…you order and return 20mins later to pick it up and there are multiple small squares to sit and eat in the sun. It’s a lovely city to mooch in, and you can easily potter the time away.
The only draw back to mention is the very relaxed attitude towards time. The printed bus schedule declared buses come every 20-40…but it’s complete pot luck when or if a bus will appear. We waited 25mins for 1 bus, 45mins for another that didn’t arrive, the third was 20min late and the fourth only 10min late.
Having planned to head into the city to watch the football, when the bus failed to arrive, Mark was most put out to miss the game. He returned back to the van in a foul mood to find me hand sewing my holey jumper and listening to a female confidence course. So he ignored my course and I ignored his football commentary 🤣 Part of my course it’s taking more time over my appearance, so my morning routine is taking even long as I get to grips with new make up stuff like highlighter and eyeliner…seriously how ever do you do those eye wing things! Also flab has bust the buttons on my only jeans so I have to sew them back on, lose weight again or just wear baggy jumpers to hide the missing buttons 🙈 Oh darn my sweet tooth!
Today we explored the futuristic science park. The architecture is so striking and beautiful makes up a series of beautiful buildings – a IMAX cinema, aquarium, science museum and garden arches.
We were tempted to visit the aquarium as it has a cafe surrounded by water tanks so you can eat with sharks and fish swimming past. However we found the queues huge, and they had whales and dolphins there which we aren’t comfortable supporting.
Instead we went to the interactive science museum which amused us for several hours. They had various exhibitions including the brains language learning skills, and one on Mars exploration. Mark is hoping to ‘marify’ doesn’t become a reality 🤣
This evening we moved the van to the beach and enjoyed a walk. Mabel having skipped previous walks rejoiced in the sand, rolling 10+ times and discovering a disgusting dead seagull. With no hurry to move on we could stay and enjoy the scenery, or travel further south…at some point we will need to decide where to spend xmas.
SofaWolves 
it was great to read your post and remember my travel to Valencia, I had a great time there, the city is so complete, it has an histoorical old town and the beaches, street and new architecture 🙂 regards, PedroL
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