i decided to go to valencia after i'd heard there was some sort of annual event taking place where people from all over the world came together and threw 40 metric tonnes of tomatoes at each other. never a fan of food fights, i'm not sure why this idea appealed to me but lets just say i was feeling very free spirited and open to new experiences by this stage of my trip and assumed i would relish in such frivolity.
i was wrong.
however, i am very glad i did decide to visit spain's third largest city, as it was here that i stayed with quite possibly my favourite airbnb hosts, a young valencian couple named miguel and gemma. i also came to the conclusion that valenica is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. it's just so clean and full of beautiful buildings, cute little alleyways and the most amazing park, which wraps itself, like a green belt, around half the city (it used to be a river until it kept flooding and they decided to transform it into 9km of garden. delightful!)
^^ the central market.
the day of la tomatina, the tomato-throwing festival.
according to online forums, if i wanted to get in the thick of things and emerge a walking bloody mary, i would need to get to the village of buñol at around 6am. this, of course, did not happen and therefore i was mainly on the outskirts of the 50,000 strong crowd the majority of the time. this suited me fine. i had a beer as big as my head to keep me occupied.
despite my best efforts, i did get sucked into the crowd at one point and took a pelting. luckily i had my snorkel mask on me and was able to avoid serious injury — being hit in the face by a flying tomato hurts, as i found out.
the worst part, however, was how bad i — and everyone else — smelt afterwards. who knew 150,000 squashed tomatoes would smell like a combination of cat sick and stale urine?
once i had showered (soaping up three times to rid myself of the smell), thrown my shoes and dress in the bin and picked all the tomato seeds out of my hair, i decided to take a walk around the city...
the next day, i took a trip to one of valencia's many beaches. it was a looooong walk to the ocean and across very very hot sand.
my book which i still now (three months later) haven't finished. think i'm giving it up as a lost cause... too heavy hemdogs!!
this bloody mary takes first place in the 'worst mary consumed in europe 2012' competition. maybe it was just because i had been drenched head to toe in tomatoes the day prior but i could barely manage a few gulps of the sickly cocktail before i had to give up.
this salad, on the other hand, was utterly delicious.
one day i hung out with gemma and miguel while they were making paella for a relative who was coming over for lunch. paella originates from valencia and they gave me a crash course in how it's made, the different varieties and the history behind it.
they also insisted i try horchata, a traditional valencian milky beverage made from tigernuts, served with a kind of sweet breadstick. it was... interesting. kind of an acquired taste i guess.
before...
... and after (i obviously couldn't try it but miguel and gemma promised to take me to one of the best paella restaurants in valenica later so i could have a vegetarian one.) while they enjoyed lunch, i set off on another one of my mindless wanderings around random cities... i was becoming quite good at getting lost those days.
the train station. see what i mean about the buildings?? amazing!!
inside the train station! wowser!
i decided to have a little rest in the park when i met a new friend!!
he was quite the little poser and happily settled down for cuddles while i snapped some portraits on self timer...
... which didn't always catch his best angles.
he was scared off by two policeman on horses who rode up and started talking to me in broken english. one of them asked if i wanted to get a photo with his horse and then gave me his hat to wear!
afterwards i climbed a tree.
that night i went out with gemma, miguel and their friend jose. we were having some drinks at a local pub when they informed me of the horrifying fact that whenever i said to shopkeepers 'estoy caliente!' accompanied by a fanning hand motion, i was in fact telling them that i was horny, rather than hot (as in sweltering).
i had been saying 'estoy caliente!' for weeks, as it was one of the few spanish sentences i thought i had mastered and you know, weather is always a good conversation starter. oh dear. no wonder i was such a hit with the old man at the grocery store.
strict carnivores, gemma and miguel humoured me by accompanying me to a vegetarian restaurant. here we had long, passionate political discussions about how many countries britain had conquered vs spain over the course of history. naturally they maintained that while spain may have seized many great lands, their purpose wasn't to demolish cultures, unlike those ruthless brits. not being patriotic or loyal towards my ancestors in the slightest, i did not oppose this argument but rather put forth that everyone was just pretty fucked in general back then.
'everyone's shit'
'not the spanish!'
'he crazy!'
'you know it!'
we finished the evening with a high-spirited game of foosball, by which gemma and miguel teamed up against jose and myself. poor jose. i made it very clear from the beginning that i had the hand-eye coordination of an arthritic pensioner but they still all urged me to play. and yes, we lost miserably.
jose scored all of our goals, bar one (you should have seen the pandemonium when i finally got that stupid ball around the miniature man on a stick. jose and i actually chest bumped. it was glorious) and i allowed every single ball to sail neatly between my players into the net. afterwards we drunkenly road our bikes home, singing songs and yelling offensive things about asses to passers-by (the details are a little blurry but i'm sure that's what happened).
the next day, i went on a bike tour around the city, starting in the jardin del turia, the old riverbed-turned-park. it was beautiful and i got to see some incredible sights. for example, see below: a playground... shaped like gulliver from 'gulliver's travels'. do you see it? amazing!! i reeeeeally wanted to play on it but felt it was inappropriate given the median age of the people there was around 7.
we also rode through the city of arts and science, valencia's most modern — and expensive — tourist attraction. it features entertainment arenas, an IMAX cinema, a planetarium, a museum and an aquarium amongst other things. our tour guide told us there was quite a bit of controversy surrounding this mini city, due to the extremely hefty price tag that was slapped on it's construction.
i.e. l'àgora, the sporting and entertainment complex, cost a rumoured 86 million euros to build and has so far only been used to host the inaugural valencian tennis tournament. not a very useful way to spend the money of one of the worst-hit countries in the financial crisis.
the controversial l'àgora.
we continued the bike tour through the city, seeing all the beautiful old churches, buildings and the only remaining section of the medieval city wall.
that night i caught up with an old family friend who i have known since birth. fresh from the london olympics, where she competed in the 200m breaststroke event, tessa was giving herself a little break from the rigours of training and was travelling around europe by herself for a few months. over dinner we shared a bottle of sangria, some tapas and many memories of how our big sisters wouldn't let us play with them when we were little.
bitches.
gemma and miguel have their own wedding photography business, meaning they get to choose what days to work. lucky for me, they decided to take the day off to show me the beautiful national park on the outskirts of valencia, followed by a beach session and the chance for me to experience valencian paella, vegetarian style.
i saw an elderly gentleman posing in the same fashion and was inspired. below are gemma and miguel demonstrating one of the more popular wedding portrait poses.
FLAMINGOOOOOSSSS!!!! :o !!!!!!
me stoked looking at the flamingos.
valencia is one of the busiest ports in europe, therefore our view at the beach was somewhat marred by container ships. nothing a few cold beers and a snooze in the sun couldn't fix though!
there she is... my vegetarian paella. the pan was as big as a steering wheel and i managed to eat the entire thing (disclaimer: this is authenic paella and therefore very thin). gemma and miguel shared the below paella... apparently it was made from squid ink or something and was delicious. i don't think anything could have beaten mine though.
back in the city, we had some beers at a little cafe before heading home to make pizzas!
my last night in valencia was spectacular, albeit bittersweet. as i boarded my ferry to mallorca, i had a heavy heart knowing i probably wouldn't ever see miguel or gemma or my foosball partner jose again. they were such awesome, funny, laid-back people and i had such a great time with them.
the best — and worst — part about travelling is meeting people. you fall completely in love with somebody and within a few days, they are nothing but a random on your facebook feed, updating with statuses you can neither understand nor care about. but i am so lucky to have met people on this trip who i actually genuinely like and would love to see again. miguel and gemma, if you see this and are ever in australia, hit me up! i challenge you to a foosball rematch...
edit: if you are ever visiting valencia and want to have an amazeballs time, i highly recommend staying with gemma and miguel! check out their airbnb listing here.
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