In order to enable Benton to get to the Valencia airport in time to greet Lucy on her delayed flight, Tim went back and forth with a bike tour to get the start of the tour moved from 10:30 to 9:30 AM. Of course, once that ball was well in motion…Lucy’s travel got further delayed such that she arrived by train from Madrid rather than by plane from Lisbon. That meant that it was a little bit needlessly hurried to get everyone up, fed (Benton’s go-to breakfast of eggs, spinach, tomatoes, and cheese…and potatoes this morning) and out the door by 9:00 AM, but we did it!
The bike tour was great! Gabriel, our guide, was a Valencia native and had been a history major at university, so he was both enthusiastic and knowledgeable. We spent the first part of the 3-hour tour getting the background of the region (similar to Cordoba: Romans -> Visigoths (Christians) -> Moors (Muslim) -> Catholics), with the guide emphasizing the degree to which the city was a natural centure of commerce and religion at many points in its history. Its proximity to the ocean made it good for fishing and trading. The river that ran through the middle of the city (now converted to a series of gardens/parks—the river was re-routed in the 1970s to avoid the periodic flooding that occurred) provided irrigation for agriculture.
Again and again, the guide called out the Valencians were a little crazy, and that there were many periods in history when these crazy people were also wealthy, and the result was often whimsical (a parrot atop the main market building, because the market was where gossip occurred; gargoyles in all sorts of crazy sex acts on the main building where trade was negotiated; even the scale and striking nature of the City of Arts and Sciences design).
We wound up largely repeating our ride from the previous day down the riverbed/garden to the City of Arts and Sciences, but we got much more history along the way and spent more time around the different buildings and getting their history and details.
After the tour, we walked around for a bit, bought some swim trunks that Alana had eyed the day before, ate lunch, and then headed back to the apartment. Julie and Alana later headed out to do some clothes shopping, while Tim headed out on a photography jaunt, and Benton headed to the train station to meet up with Lucy.
We all then went to dinner and called it a night!
An interesting/memorable experience of the day:
Benton: Lucy finally arriving (24 hours later than planned), and the fact that she got upgraded to 1st class on her flight from Heathrow to Madrid British Airways…but zonked out so hard that she missed all of the perks of added service that were included with that upgrade!
Alana: something about the doughnuts here make them taste really, really good
Tim: the gargoyle on the commerce building of a man mooning passers-by, and the other gargoyle on the other side of the building that looks just like the head of Chewbacca from Star Wars. And also Alana’s quest to learn, “Su perro es muy bonita” and, ultimately, getting the nerve up to say it to a stranger walking his dog after dinner.
