Valencia's City of the arts and science.

This morning, we went for a jog thru old town again.  It was extremely quiet at 8 in the Sunday morning.  I guess starting supper at 9:30 at night, the Spaniards sleep in on Sunday morning.  This city reminds us a bit of Paris for its buildings.  Lots of details on the buildings.  We made a detour at one point to check out the university and the square in front of it.  Turned out that the most interesting spot was next to it.  It was the Ceramic museum.  The outside was very ornate with a grandiose marble entrance.  It could very well been a church at one time but not sure.

Bull ring at 9AM, not many people out at this time of morning

Train station morning jog

Ceramic museum

Ceramic museum

What Wendy called the "Dianna" bridge crossing (notice she is jogging with muffins in her hand)

We meet up with James & Karen at 10.  We checked out of the hotel and had no other charges as we did the free parking, avoided the breakfast buffets and did not use the spa pool.  If we did all these, it would have doubled our bill. A group of golfers were checking out and I guess they were there for a friendly annual competition as they had a golden jacket with the previous year’s winners on it.  Not the same as playing for the green jacket at the masters but I am sure they had fun nevertheless. I`m sure they didn`t have as much fun as we do though playing the frog cup.  Kinda gave Wendy and I, the urge to play golf.

We pack up the car and we drove to an area called the City of the Arts and Science since it was about 3 km from the hotel and we decided not to walk there.  It was built 10 years ago.  There are about 6 or 7 main buildings, all done in an artsy/spacy way. The main reason we wanted to go was to see the oceanic aquarium which is the largest in Europe.  James and I took a long time to get our ticket as we had planned to do a combination visit with the Hemisphere (Imax and kinda space center).  Between the speakers crackling, poor Spanish for us and little English from the clerk, we were sold the combo to the science museum instead.  So now the supervisor comes to help with the refund and re-issuing of tickets.  To put it mildly, the girls were not very happy for how long it took.

City of Arts and Science

We took in the dolphin show, which was very well done.  We did not really like the first 15 minutes that was all done in Spanish, mostly to pick 6 kids to pet the dolphins later on in the show.  We were sitting in the shade and the wind picked up a little bit.  It was a bit fresh and we should have probably sat in the sunny side.

Dolphins pushing the trainers into the air, looked like fun...

Outside the dolphin area, they had about 15 birds of prey on display.  They were attached to the pole they were sitting down on.  Kinda felt sorry for them but beautiful birds.  Not sure where they fit in the picture of the ocean as they were all land birds.

The auditorium had a giant aquarium on stage running the whole length and height.  The glass was over 1 foot thick.  It was on the Red Sea.  We sat there and watch for about 15 minutes.  Very peaceful seeing the fish swim back and forth.

Red Sea Aquarium

Next we did the shark section, which was all underwater viewing areas.  There was also a 200 foot tunnel where the water was even on top of you.   There were fish with the sharks as well but they all seemed to get along.  Not sure how the sharks get fed.    

Sharks overhead

Sunfish

A visit to see the penguins was also fun.  They are so cute and sometimes they would stop swimming and look at you thru the glass panel.  Priceless

Penguin for James

Looks like a penguin for Wendy from the Galapagos

There was an area called the wetland where they had many species of birds.  You walked in the aviary and you could get very close to the birds.  There were some very colourful birds.  I am sure this would have been Robins favorite part, not. 

Outside aviary

The last part we did was the Caribbean and Mediterranean seas. These areas were also all underwater viewing area.  It was fun to see lots of the fish that we see when we snorkel in Cuba and Mexico. We all had a great time and would definitely recommend doing this.  

We still had had not eaten lunch at 3.  We check out one restaurant on site but it was very pricy as one can imagine.  We decided to drive to the beach area where we had lunch yesterday and try another restaurant there.  While walking to the car we saw a shopping mall across the street and a McDonald sign.  We figured there was a food court.  The first restaurant had a buffet and we decided to go for it and not look any further.  They had paella on the buffet.  I think I have had my filled of paella for a while now. The buffet was very good.  James and I had a piece of meat that we were not sure what it was.  So we asked the waiter and had to make animal noise to find out what it was. Mooo, no, Bahhh, no, oink oink Yes.

Back at the car, we offered to drive James and Karen back, but Karen wanted the exercise.  Not sure if they will be exploring old town tonight or not.  We said our good byes and headed out of town.  The traffic circles were not very busy compared to Friday afternoon.  We got beeped once but not sure why.  We decided to avoid the tolls highway on the way home.  It was only 30 minutes longer and it is more scenic.  The area where the girls were working was quiet.  Not sure if it was because of Sunday afternoon or they were all busy.  Did not see many empty chairs, might be their day off.  I missed the first one and we only saw one more.

Back at our place, we went to the beach area to get a few groceries for the morning.  The supermarket was not open, so we walked the street behind the row of restaurants.  There are a couple of little grocery store, the last one was a bit bigger and we found what we were looking for.  At home we watch the Masters and waited until 9:30 to make supper.  Pasta was in order and we used most of what was in the fridge.  I watched until midnight and crashed.  Wendy stayed up until the end but I believe she snoozed on and off.  I will watch the highlights in the morning.