Tim and Alana took a walk to “Parc Central” this morning—lots of fountains and shallow canals, with lots of dogs playing in them. Plus, a huge, adult-sized slide (Tim’s shorts were slick enough to slide right down; Alana’s were not) and a couple of climbing wall structures.
After breakfast, Benton, Lucy, and Tim headed out and rented e-scooters for three hours. They rode to the City of Arts and Sciences so Lucy could see that compound, then returned up through the greenbelt to check out various parks and gardens and sites farther up. There was one collision (Lucy running into Benton) with no injuries, and one minor injury with no collision (Tim tripped over the scooters while they were park and put a ding in his ankle). That trio then ate lunch at an understandably mediocre cafe just off of Virgin Square, and they followed it up with a tour of the Archaelogical Museum, which was a total bust (very disjointed information jumping across all of the different eras of the city—Tim and Benton had been so impressed with the museums in Cordoba and at Medina Azahara that, perhaps, they had expectations set too high?).
Meanwhile, Alana and Julie went clothes shopping—there were very practical needs to replace some key garments (a bathing suit for Julie being the main one) that are still stuck in as-yet-undelivered luggage, but they also seem to have gotten quite enamored with low prices and cute tops and bottoms and such, so there are now piles of attire littering the apartment that the author of this write-up simply does not care to dwell on.
For dinner, we finally nailed it with a place that served paella. It was more upscale than the dinner fare to date in Spain. The name of the place was Pelayo Gastro Trinquet, and it was themed after Valencian pilota, which is a handball/tennis-type sport, and the restaurant actually has a door that exits the restaurant into one of the most storied courts (trinquets?) in the history of the sport. So, that was interesting.
An interesting/memorable experience of the day:
Benton: The degree to which the archaeological museum was such a confusing mess
Tim: the e-scooter collision after which Benton’s scooter’s fender was dragging, and the team effort to get the root cause diagnosed, realizing (or agreeing) that the culprit was a missing bolt that had nothing to do with the accident, and getting the scooter back in working order. And watching the dogs play with Alana at Parc Central.
