First stop; Valencia! After spending a little over two weeks in Murcia, it was time to get going. Our bags were packed and the world was waiting. It was time to begin our interrail journey through Spain.
For those wondering what interrailing is, let me explain. Interrailing is basically travelling countries by train, whether it be through Europe, the U.S. or one country alone. You have a tonne of options and you can plan a route to suit you. You buy a pass which gives you a certain amount of travel days to be used up within a period of time. For example, myself and my boyfriend bought the Youth Spain Pass for four days within one month. It was perfect for the route we had planned. It came to €154 each with the addition of €10 reservation fees for each of the high speed trains. We bought our passes from Interrail.eu which I'd highly recommend. By the end of our trip we realised just how much money we actually saved with these passes. They are a must!
Next we moved on to the Science museum which I don't have a lot to say about. As I mentioned above, I have no interest in science whatsoever so this wasn't exactly my cup of tea. A lot of it was in Spanish too so we weren't able to understand most of it. One good thing I'd say is that there was a lot for people to get involved with and you were able to interact and experiment with the contents of the museum. I definitely think children would love it here.
We left the best for last; the Pixar Exhibition. It showcased twenty-five years of animation, with the original drawings and sketches of movies such as Finding Nemo, Monsters Inc., Up, The Incredibles, Toy Story and Ratatouille. There were also TVs spotted around the gallery showing how animation works and how the movies are made. It was such a great experience and was definitely my favourite part from the City of Arts and Sciences.
Now if your a bit of a shopper Valencia has plenty for you. Right opposite the City of Arts and Sciences, there's a huge Carrefour shopping centre. It has all the shops you need as well as a cinema and a food court. If you don't want to stray this far from the city that's okay because there are plenty of shops to choose from in the city of Valencia.
There is something for everyone in Valencia and it is definitely somewhere I'd consider going again. I wish we had spent more time there because there was so much more to do, but we had to move on to our next stop; Madrid.
Thank you so much for reading and hopefully you'll continue to follow my journey through Spain. Mwah!
Holly X
For those wondering what interrailing is, let me explain. Interrailing is basically travelling countries by train, whether it be through Europe, the U.S. or one country alone. You have a tonne of options and you can plan a route to suit you. You buy a pass which gives you a certain amount of travel days to be used up within a period of time. For example, myself and my boyfriend bought the Youth Spain Pass for four days within one month. It was perfect for the route we had planned. It came to €154 each with the addition of €10 reservation fees for each of the high speed trains. We bought our passes from Interrail.eu which I'd highly recommend. By the end of our trip we realised just how much money we actually saved with these passes. They are a must!
We had to
get two trains as the nearest station to Condado was Alhama de Murcia which is
where all the short journey trains go through. It was about a twenty minute trip before we arrived at the main train station in the city of Murcia,
Murcia del Carmen. We didn’t want to waste a travel day on our interrail pass
so we paid for a ticket to our first destination. Altogether we paid about €30
each one way for the whole journey from Alhama to Valencia. It was a very
reasonable price for the distance we were travelling.
I’m not
going to lie, I was a bit skeptical about Valencia at first. I had never heard
of it to start with and thought it couldn’t be that great if no one I knew I
had ever been. Just as we were coming into the train station after our two and a half hour train ride, all I could see was what looked to be a small slum area with high rise apartment blocks. I couldn’t help but think
what have I got myself into! I had done very little research
about the city and didn’t really know what to expect. Fortunately, as soon as I
stepped off the train I was pleasantly surprised. I walked outside to find a
gorgeous city that I instantly fell in love with; the architecture, the buildings, the streets. Just amazing! It was very modern and new but when searching for our hostel, we moved into the older part of the
city. It was definitely more traditional Spanish with narrow streets, small
shops and little restaurants. It was so nice and the atmosphere in the evening
was just lovely especially around our hostel.
As for
the hostel itself, we spent about two hours looking for it. We walked opposite ends of
Valencia trying to find it and I’m pretty sure we passed it several times. We
even had the locals trekking around with us trying to find the place.
Eventually, we found it and were looking forward to seeing what €12 a night
gets you. The name of the hostel was Feet Up Backpackers Hostel and we were
instantly made feel very welcome. The receptionists gave us a map and marked
all the best places to go, named all the things to do and showed us the most
popular bus routes to help us get around. First impressions were good. It
wasn’t a five star hotel but it felt homely and fun. We didn’t have much to
compare it to since it was the first hostel we'd ever stayed in but it seemed
pleasant. We were staying in a six bed mixed dorm which was all good except for the fact we had no air conditioning. The room had fans and we had a huge window looking
out onto the street but that didn’t help with the heat whatsoever, making it very
hard to sleep. On top of being dripping in sweat, the fans were extremely noisy. So
noisy I’d wake up during the night and anyone that knows me says I am the
heaviest sleeper. Not even an alarm could wake me but somehow the fans managed
to do so. Let’s just say I didn’t look forward to trying to get to sleep at
night. Other than that, the hostel was great. We were staying with lovely
people, it was clean, there were hot showers, a kitchen, a bar and vending machines.
The hostel also offered loads of tours and had lots of events running whilst we
were staying. We did plan on doing some of the tours but unfortunately four
days just wasn’t long enough. Instead, most days,
myself and my boyfriend roamed the streets of Valencia. It was just us and our
map. We walked and walked until we found somewhere we recognised again. It was
such a beautiful city. I really loved it.
My boyfriend is an art lover and is obsessed with graffiti. He loved Valencia just as much as I did and if any of you have any interest in street art, it's the place to be. Now I don't mean people tagging their names on every wall they can find. This stuff is really cool and brilliantly done. Our hostel even offered a graffiti tour during the week. It was something we really wanted to do but once again just didn't have the time.
On our second day we ventured out of the
city and discovered a huge park. Strangely enough it was once a river that is now completely dried up and is currently being converted into a park. We met a lot of people who had rented bikes for their trip and this was the perfect place to go for a cycle. The park leads to the 'City of Arts and Sciences' in Valenica. This is a complex which consists of the Opera House, the Principe Felipe Science Museum, the Pixar Exhibition, the Aquarium, the Agora, the Imax Dome Theatre and more that is now in the process of being built. This place has to be seen to be believed. With pools of crystal clear water and state of the art buildings, your eyes are in for a treat. When I visited I felt like I was in a different world; so modern and futuristic. Myself and my boyfriend's main concern was getting to the Pixar exhibition and the Aquarium but we purchased a ticket that gave us access to almost everything; the Science Museum, the Imax Dome Theatre, the Aquarium (including a midnight dolphin show) and the Pixar exhibition. I think it costed around €36 each and allowed us to use it over a two day period.
The first evening we went to the Aquarium, known as L'Oceanográfic. Our slot was at around eight o'clock as we all had to be seated before twelve for the dolphin show. You can guess by the four hours being given how big the place actually is. It is an outdoor and indoor aquarium and housed over 500 species of sea creatures and wetland birds. There was a thunder storm when we were there so as you can imagine we didn't spend a lot of time outside. It still took us around three hours to get through the whole thing and by the end I was about to burst with excitement. I couldn't wait for the dolphin show. I loved the fact it was at midnight too. I had never been to anything like it before but it was exactly like they do it on TV. The trainers got the crowd warmed up just before we were introduced to the synchronised swimmers. They performed a routine before being joined by the dolphins themselves. The way they followed instructions and the tricks they carried out were unbelievable. They're such amazing, intelligent creatures. After swimming with sea lions in Murcia, one day I would love to be able to do the same with dolphins. The show went on for a little over an hour and by the time we got out and back to the hostel I was fit for bed.
The following day we returned to 'The City of Arts and Sciences'. We got the bus down to save us some time. We started off in the Imax Dome Theatre where we had to choose and book a movie the previous day. We randomly picked 'The Hidden Universe'. On our way in to the dome shaped cinema we were given head sets which narrated the movie in our chosen language. The movie began and before I knew it, I felt as if I was in outer space. As the visuals moved around the dome it gave a 3D effect and you couldn't help but feel you were there. 'The Hidden Universe' was more of a documentary than a movie but for someone who has no interest in science whatsoever, surprisingly enough I really enjoyed it. I'd highly recommend paying a visit to this rare type of building as it isn't something you come across very often and if you have an interest in learning something about space or the universe this is a great way of doing it.
Next we moved on to the Science museum which I don't have a lot to say about. As I mentioned above, I have no interest in science whatsoever so this wasn't exactly my cup of tea. A lot of it was in Spanish too so we weren't able to understand most of it. One good thing I'd say is that there was a lot for people to get involved with and you were able to interact and experiment with the contents of the museum. I definitely think children would love it here.
We left the best for last; the Pixar Exhibition. It showcased twenty-five years of animation, with the original drawings and sketches of movies such as Finding Nemo, Monsters Inc., Up, The Incredibles, Toy Story and Ratatouille. There were also TVs spotted around the gallery showing how animation works and how the movies are made. It was such a great experience and was definitely my favourite part from the City of Arts and Sciences.
Now if your a bit of a shopper Valencia has plenty for you. Right opposite the City of Arts and Sciences, there's a huge Carrefour shopping centre. It has all the shops you need as well as a cinema and a food court. If you don't want to stray this far from the city that's okay because there are plenty of shops to choose from in the city of Valencia.
There is something for everyone in Valencia and it is definitely somewhere I'd consider going again. I wish we had spent more time there because there was so much more to do, but we had to move on to our next stop; Madrid.
Thank you so much for reading and hopefully you'll continue to follow my journey through Spain. Mwah!
Holly X
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Email: hollyfitzsimons@hotmail.com
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