Next, and more substantial stop on the itinerary was sunny Valencia, home of the America's Cup, one of the longest central city parks ever, and quite possibly the strangest set of buildings in the world...
We started our touristing by visiting the Torres de Quart, which, until the mid-nineteenth century formed part of a city wall, and now is just a cool old tower/fortification. From there, we rolled through the central food market, though were pleased/disappointed [depending on which way you want to view it] to find no bunches of hanging carcasses this time.
Made our way to the Cathedral, which dates from the thirteenth century, and *supposedly* holds the chalice used at the Last Supper, used by a number of popes over the years.. Not that we saw anything of said relic though, of course... so we just admired the amazing interior instead, not so crazy and intense and over the top as some we have seen recently, but gave it more of a feeling of calm inside. Also mighty impressive from outside, as the Cathedral was completed over a number of centuries and so is a real mix of styles, mostly Gothic, but a bit of Neoclassical and Baroque, together with a smattering of remains of the old Visigoth cathedral that stood on the site prior to the current building's construction...
After the Cathedral we went for a very long and very strange walk through one of the most distinctive features in Valencia, the many-kilometre long park that runs through the city in the bed of a dried up river which was diverted after severe flooding in the 1960s. Passing many playground, fountain, and wandering dog, we made it to the "ciudad de las artes y las ciences de Valencia" [or City of Arts and Sciences] - quite possibly one of the more ambitious architectural projects we have ever seen.. It is made up of four main parts, the first you pass is 'L'Umbracle', shaped by 55 fixed arches and 54 floating arches covered in climbing plants, which covers 7,000 square metres... the 'El Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía' is a giant eye shaped performance arts centre...then comes 'Hemisferic', a giant dome containing an Imax theatre... eventually you get to 'L'Oceanogràfic', a giant open-air ocean park, the largest complex of it's type in Europe, and containing 45,000 animals from 500 different species... But really, the most impressive thing is the buildings themselves, regardless of what they hold - they are crazy huge constructions of glass, steel, bizarre angles and lots and lots of water... an absolute engineering nightmare to construct, I'm sure, but spectacular to behold now!
Our final port of call was the harbour itself, and the America's Cup village it holds there, since those nasty Swiss stole it from us.. The village itself felt rather desolate and empty, but that would be the case with nothing going on... I imagine it positively hums in race season. And we got to see a few giant framed, signed photos in the America's Cup exhibit centre, including our friends Grant Dalton and Dean Barker, but not that traitor Russell Coutts... though I'm not sure he isn't happier with his millions of dollars than he would be with a photo on a wall in a building no-one seems to visit in a coastal Spanish town.... still, we know something about national pride! :)
Outside and around the village was what will be used for the Valencia edition of the F1 Grand Prix, though it also looked rather sad with the odd car just puttering along in no particular hurry...
Anyway, we walked till we couldn't walk any more, and while the only kiwi-related site we have seen in a long long time wasn't exactly thriving, it was very cool to be able to say we have been there...
And now for more touristy times... off to busy Barcelona :)
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