ALICANTE & VALENCIA

5 or so hours in the bus and we had arrived in Alicante.  We didn't really have high hopes for it, but we wanted somewhere to stay prior to going to Valencia, so we settled with Alicante which is on the eastern coast of Spain, about 1-2 hours south of Valencia.

Our first impressions were that it was just a shitty beach town, full of shitty tourists, shitty restaurants and shit all to do apart from lie on the shitty beach.  These impressions were to become reality as Alicante really didn't have much going for it.

At least our hostel was in a pretty decent location, right in the old town and only a street back from the water and promenade.  We even had a pretty cool view out our window of the Santisima Trinidad, an almost exact replica (and also a restaurant) of the Spanish ship that when built in 1802, was the heaviest armed ship in the world with over 140 guns on board.

We checked out the menu of the boat restaurant, but as to be expected, the prices were heavily inflated, so we settled with a suggestion from Lonely Planet, Cantina Villahemy, in a great little spot in the old town.

The duck with roasted potatoes and orange and dried apricots was a real highlight, but we really struggled to enjoy our meals with the weather how it was.  There were no temperatures around, but it't not right when it is 10pm and you are sitting outside at a restaurant and are stuck to the back of your chair.  We had to resort to holding ice blocks in our hands and even putting our feet in the ice bucket to cool ourselves down haha!

We went for a walk along the beach promenade after dinner to try and catch some of the sea breeze and also because we were scared of going back to our room as again there was no air-con!

we were mesmerised by the design of the walk-way, it was like  we were wearing 3D glasses

That night we couldn't sleep, so we skyped Mum and Dad McDonald and even they were amazed at the sweat dripping down our faces at 2 in the morning!!

it was so hot, even the fan hung itself

We didn't waste any time the next morning in getting to the beach, as there wasn't really anything else to do in Alicante.  We spent pretty much the whole day there, reading our books, catching some rays and actually not a whole lot of swimming as the water was as warm as a spa and not the least bit refreshing.

the water may have been an ugly brown, but some of its visitors were more than easy on the eye!

no Thailand massage, but still very relaxing

Walking back to our hostel from the beach, Anna finally went in to a pharmacy and queried the weird splotches on her back that had appeared about 1-2 months prior.  Turns out she had a fungus growing on her back and needed some immediate cream attention.  We think it was fuelled by anna continually having wet hair on her back....ahhh the joys of hostel life!

I'm hoping that we don't see any mushrooms sprouting out from Anna's back

That night we walked around the harbour for a while, just looking at a few of the boats and watching the sun go down.  We had a cocktail at one of the bars by the water and then started our search for a restaurant that met our high standards.

After what seemed like an eternity of checking dodgy overpriced menus, we finally gave up and chose a spot that looked semi-decent.  The food wasn't too bad, but again the temperature was still so uncomfortably hot, that it was hard to enjoy anything we ate apart from the ice blocks from our water!

I wasn't comfortable with just rocking upto the bus stop and hoping to secure a ticket on the bus we wanted, so relatively early the next morning I got up and ran a few km's along the beach promenade to book us bus tickets for later in the day.
The bus set off around 1pm and by late that afternoon, we had checked into the Red Nest Hostel in Valencia.

It was another ripper of a hostel.  Perfect location, excellent dorm rooms and facilities, plenty of activities and a great bar and common room area on the 5th floor.

There were some pretty nice people in our 10 bed dorm room, so we sat in there for a while doing the usual get to know you chatting (where you from, where you been, where you going etc.), got changed and then headed upstairs for a few drinks and a game of pool.

We weren't up for a big night, so we didn't wander too far from our hostel for dinner, but we didn't need to because it was a super meal.

Valencia is where paella first simmered over a wood fire, so it seemed the logical option for our first meal.  It didn't let us down.  Neither did the 'Agua de Valencia' which mixes sparkling champagne, orange juice, gin and vodka for one of, if not the best drink I have had in Europe - so good!

typical Valencian paella doesn't have any seafood, instead rabbit and chicken - delicious!

when it comes to squeezing lemon on any of our meals, Anna is in charge

The next morning we were up not so early, out the door by about 11am, ready to cover as much of Valencia as we could in one day.  We started off at Mercado Central, which, with over 900 stalls, was a swirl of smells, movement and colour.  Of course we had to try the traditional Valencian freshly squeezed orange juice and managed to tuck into some great fruit, as well as a cheeky pastry and a free coffee.

Walking south from the market, we arrived at Plaza del Ayuntamiento and marvelled at the beautiful old buildings including the post office and the town hall and then continued on further south to see the bullfighting ring and the train station.

quite a beautiful old train station, but has nothing on Flinders Street!

Then heading east, we followed Gran Via del Marques del Turia, which was a great street lined with many huge old trees, before arriving at another of Valencia's old markets, Mercado de Colon.

Walking around another market made us pretty hungry, so we walked back up towards to busiest area of the city to Plaza de la Reina and ended up at a cafe that was really similar to one you would find in Melbourne.

We got a great value meal; it was actually more like a dinner, and we both walked out with our belts undone, not feeling like doing much else for the day.

no matter how full my stomach is, I can always fit in a Toyota photo - this is right outside our hostel

That night we felt like seafood and so we thought we would take Lonely Planet's advice and try a really popular restaurant down by the beach.  It was a bit of an effort to get there, but we finally made it and had a nice walk along the promenade before searching for the restaurant.

This nice walk turned into horror when we finally arrived at the restaurant to find that it was closed on a Monday night.  What an error it was not to read the Lonely Planet more carefully!!

it took us about 45 minutes to get back into town, so we passed the time mucking around with the camera

By the time we got off the bus, it was nearing 10pm and we couldn't be stuffed trying to find a decent restaurant, so we literally just picked the closest one to our hostel.  Luckily it turned out to be a great Italian restaurant.  We both seriously enjoyed our meals, but the best part was the limoncello at the end!

our hostel

Next morning the sun was already blazing at 9am, but that didn't deter us from getting up to do some exercise.

In what I think was a genius move, the River Turia's former course is now a 9km-long lung of green with a mix of playing fields, cycling, jogging and walking paths, fountains and other water features, lawns, playgrounds and even a magnificent Gulliver playground.

Anna went for a brief run along the jogging path, whilst I found a grassy spot in the shade to do my usual squats/pushups/situps/lunges 20min combo.

Walking back to our hostel all sweaty and tired, we found a great little breakfast spot where we stopped to have coffee's, ham and cheese croissants and an apple pastry, undoing some of our good work in the "Jardines del Turia".

Our plans for the rest of the day consisted of walking back down the river park to check out the Parque Gulliver, before checking out the much talked about 'Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias' (City of Arts and Sciences) and then further on to the beach.

The Parque Gulliver was pretty cool.  Gulliver's body morphs into slides, ramps, stairs and caves, scaled so that the visitors (mostly kids) are transformed into the size of the village Lilliputians.

As has been mentioned plenty of times before, it was so damn hot that we didn't want to spend much time in the sun.  I ran onto the so called play equipment, but the surface was so hot that I couldn't even touch it, let alone sit down and attempt a slide!

A few hundred meters past the giant Gulliver, we first set our eyes upon the space age splendour that is the City of Arts and Sciences.

Rising from the former river bed and extending over 2km, this complex is like something out of a Hollywood science fiction movie.

The first structure is the concert hall, looking like a giant beetle or even the helmet of a sprint cyclist, its shell shimmers with translucent mosaic and is as modern or contemporary as any 'building' I have ever seen.  It includes 4 auditoriums and with seating for almost 4,500 people, it's exceeded in capacity only by the Sydney Opera house.

The next so called building in the complex is known as 'Hemisferic'.  Seen from the outside, it looks like a huge heavy lidded eyelid, but inside it contains a planetarium, IMAX theatre and laser show - no laser eye surgery though.

Also included in this amazing complex is 'Oceanografic', one of the worlds biggest aquariums. We decided we had enough of sightseeing though and headed off to the Playa de las Arenas beach.

As was the case with Alicante, the water was so warm that it didn't even feel refreshing when you jumped in after a solid 30 min tanning session.  So much so in fact that we started having cold showers at the start of the beach rather than swimming hah!

After a few hours of sizzling, reading books, playing cards, a quick lunch etc. etc. we called it a day and made the trek back to the Red Nest Hostel.

We made full use of the hostel's laundry services that evening, then had a few drinks at the hostel bar and then made our way out for dinner to a Lonely Planet suggested restaurant, Carosel.

We had real difficulty in finding it and there was a stage where we thought it must have closed down.  Even when we asked some policemen where it was they had never heard of it either.  However they were really really nice and must have been really really bored, because they got on their walkie-talkie and spoke to someone back at headquarters, they then googled it and relayed back the directions to us, haha it was hilarious!

We were disappointed not to get an outside table considering there were plenty available, but they insisted that they were reserved, even though there were no reservation signs on them.  We were one of only two tables occupied inside and literally 20 minutes went by before we got given glasses of water, let alone got served!

I started with without doubt the best chicken croquettes I have had, whilst Anna impressively polished off a huge plate of muscles.

Anna hadn't seen this much muscles since she saw me get out of the shower hah!

Anna had a few more tapas type dishes for her main meal and I boldly chose the fish without actually knowing what it was.  Unfortunately it was mackerel and tasted like a huge sardine.  It was actually ok, but really not my thing.  Luckily we had a great bottle of rose and a bowl of amazing patatas bravas.

We declined on the offer for desert and asked for the bill, thinking we may get an ice-cream on the way home, or even go back to the hostel for a few more drinks.  10 minutes then passed with no bill.  Another 10 minutes passed and not even a peep from the waitress.

This appalling display of service, accompanied by the fact that there was at least two free tables outside the whole time we were there forced us to review the situation and decide that even though we really enjoyed our meal, the shit service did not warrant our hard earned.  We conjured up a smart getaway, snuck out the front door and took alternative routes back to the hostel.

A few drinks and games of "stingers" table tennis once we met back at our hostel and then we hit the sack, ready to depart for the Costa Brava the next morning.