Seafood paella with Aigua de Valencia at La Moma near Plaza de la Virgen, Valencia
Arriving in Valencia, I decided to take a taxi to the L&H Gran Via hotel since l had nothing booked and had been looking at that hotel on my phone while on the train. The taxi driver was a young Latin American guy who was showing quite a bit of attitude and that immediate aggressiveness you get from certain people in Spain when you speak English to them. It seems to be a combination of annoyance at more English-speaking people arriving in their city and frustration at not knowing how to speak English. Apparently, for these people, the solution is to be rude and aggressive to English-speaking people!
I typed the name of the hotel into his phone so the GPS could look it up. I felt quite glad to get out of the taxi when we arrived at the hotel and went into the reception dragging my big suitcase. I told the guy at the reception that I didn´t have a booking and needed to know how much it would cost to stay there. As it was rather expensive and also was not located as close to the center as I had thought, I decided I need to find a hotel closer to the center. The guy was really helpful and made some suggestions of places to stay and gave me some directions.
It was an easy walk especially as the weather was good and also Valencia is flat and not too crowded. I soon found myself near the Mercado and felt much better once I began to recognize the streets around from the two-day trip I had made to Valencia from Alicante back in September, 2023.
Chicken and prawn spring rolls at Cappuccino Grand Cafe, Plaza de la Reina, Valencia
image credit: www.cappuccinograndcafe.es/en/valencia
I walked to Plaza Reina and headed to the Cappuccino Grand Cafe as I am familiar with the chain and always liked it when I lived in Mallorca. It is a bit on the expensive side though, so I only tend to go to their cafes occasionally. I sat at a table outside and had a perfect plate of crispy prawn and chicken spring rolls with an icy jug of fresh and minty lemonade. I then headed inside the cafe with my suitcase and found a sofa and coffee table at the side where began my last minute search for a hotel from my laptop. It was already around 5 pm and I really needed to figure out where I was going to be staying.
Eventually, after about an hour of searching, I managed to find a serviced aparthotel with good reviews called Parker the Urban Flats, and as it was slightly outside the center, decided to take a taxi there. Actually, it would have been better to walk, as there is a one way traffic system and traffic lights every 50 meters or so in Valencia city center, which makes taking a taxi pretty much pointless.
The Parker flats were nice, but rather grey, corporate, and soulless. On the plus side, the bed was very comfortable and had high quality linens. Also, the apartment had a dishwasher, which is always good. On the other hand, there was basically no view – the view from the very narrow balcony was of a large concreted area which was sort of inner courtyard with concrete apartment buildings surrounding it and lots of sad looking fake plants. The walls of the apartment were paper thin, so literally every sound in the building could be heard, including children crying, people talking, and water flowing through the pipes! For some reason, I was absolutely exhausted and so for the next two days, I simply rested and did not even leave the aparthotel.
Delicious garlic prawns with sobrasada spread and fried egg at Bardebares, next to the Mercado Central
On the third day, I walked to the Mercado and had the same dinner at the same restaurant, Bardebares (see above) as on my last trip to Valencia which was for just two nights in September, 2023.
El Asilo del Libro bookshop near the Mercado Central, Valencia
After dinner, I went for a walk, first passing by the old book shop, El Asilo del Libro, that I had popped into on my previous trip. The bookshop needs a serious tidy up, but it does look quite interesting for rummaging around if you have the time. I strolled into the center passing Sagardi, where I had some excellent pintxos (highly recommend) on my last trip and then headed onto towards Plaza Reina.
Delicious pintxos at Sagardi, close to Plaza Reina, Valencia
Plaza Reina had a bit of a buzz with groups of young teenagers milling around, likely on a school trip. In the corner of Plaza Reina is the Cathedral, which I had not had a chance to see before. Going in, I found that the interior of the cathedral was very peaceful and beautiful. I came out and walked around a bit more and then headed back to the aparthotel.
Volumes of the famous novel Don Quixote, written in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century by the Spanish author, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra at El Asilo del Libro
On my fourth day in Valencia, I decided to move a bit closer to the center and booked a room at the Vincci Lys. After the first night, I asked to be moved due to very loud construction noise next door to the hotel that started by around 8:30 a.m. Luckily, I was upgraded to a larger room on the other side of the hotel. The staff at the hotel were all very nice and the new room was fine, although the bathroom smelled very strongly of mold, and as is typical in hotels in Spain, there was no exhaust fan and no windows in the bathroom. The bed was comfortable and the room was spacious and clean, but the drab colours of the hotel (shades of beige and bluish-grey) made me feel very tired and eventually, exhausted!
Ayuntamiento, Plaza del Ayuntamiento, Valencia. Can you see the bat?
It was nice to be so close to the huge square, Plaza del Ayuntamiento, which is ofcourse the location of the Ayuntamiento (town hall). It is beautifully lit at night. There was a little bit of life, with some screaming teenage girls taking selfies near the fountain, again, probably on a school trip. I watched the colours changing in the fountain, walked around, got a well-made burrito from Burritos, Calle Ribera, listened to a street performer singing some old Spanish songs, and then headed back to my hotel room.
Beautiful architecture of Valencia. Above, is a photo I took of the baroque exterior of the National Ceramics museum, Valencia.
In fact, overall, something about Valencia was rapidly draining my energy and I just couldn´t figure out what it was. It´s a clean, safe, very walkable, pretty city with beautiful architecture, amazing food (as you can probably tell from all the photos, one of my favourite things about Valencia was the food), and really nice people. In fact, three ladies working at a bank or insurance type business near Carrer de Colon (the main shopping street in Valencia), actually came out of their offices to help direct me to the Vincci Lys hotel and one even ran after me to make sure I didn´t go the wrong way. They definitely gave me a good feeling about the people of Valencia. And yet, I just could not feel any real vibe in the city. It just wasn´t there! I found myself thinking, hmm…maybe this trip is not over. Maybe it´s not yet time to head back to Alicante yet!
City of Arts & Sciences, Valencia
image credit: http://www.spain.info
I had already done a hop-on hop-off bus tour of Valencia on my last trip, so did not venture out again to the modern City of Arts & Sciences with its highly futuristic buildings, though I would say that the buildings and the museums that they house are impressive and worth seeing.
And so, after thinking about it for a day or two and feeling like my energy was just draining out of me and that I needed to be somewhere that felt alive, I booked my train ticket to….Barcelona! I´ll tell you all about my amazing four days in Barcelona in my next post!
For daily magic from the universe ✨ 
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