Friday the 13th. That was the date when I flew to Valencia. I was scared;-) ?

I’ve never been to Valencia before. So I was really exited about it. Especially, because the weather here in Switzerland wasn’t so good the last week and I heard that it is like 30 degree in Spain. So I looked forward to get there and enjoy the last days of the summer of 2006.
On this day I had to get up early to catch the train to the airport. I was still tired of the days before. Arrived in Zurich, I checked in at the helvetic.com counter. All the rest was like usually. I’m getting used to fly around?
We started with some delay, but we arrived at time in Valencia.
Wow, this warm ambient air, was my first impression. Valencia has a nice, small airport. So, I got quick my suitcase and could leave the airport.
I was happy that Felizitas picked me up there, because otherwise I had to find the right bus to get to the city center and from there to the Home of Mareike, who is Felizitas friend. To go by bus is in Valencia not simpler than in China. Because they named the Bus stops by the street crossing. So, you always have to know the names of the streets and that’s definitely difficult in a big city like this.
But, with Felizitas help and the average that she studied here one year ago, we found easy the right buses and the home where we stayed!
Mareike lives in an apartment with several rooms and she lives with a girl named Rosa, who I never met these days.
We made some little plans, so we can see as much as possible in these days. However, the first day was relaxing on the plan. Felizitas showed me round in the city. I was surprised about the city. It’s not so crowded for the size, and especially the Park was amazing.
Actually, it was not always a park. Then earlier days Valencia had a river called Turia. Because of the floods, the people of Valencia decided to build a new by-pass for the Turia and to use the river bed as park. Like that Valencia has like a green stripe through the whole city. Especially, the Palau de la música with his fountain in front and the relaxing music is nice to spend the hot siesta time.






As we achieved the old city we were hungry and looked for a nice place to eat. Normally, no problem in Spain, but it was 4 o’clock so all the restaurants already closed for lunch. But at the end we found a small restaurant to eat lunch.
The time table is different from the rest of Europe, especially Switzerland. Here you eat lunch from two to four and dinner from 9.30pm to midnight. It was something new for my body to wait so long to get some dinner.
We both didn’t felt good, we got some cough, so we went early to bed. Because, we wanted really to enjoy the next day.
On Saturday we finally got to the beach. Round Valencia there are several beaches. We went to the real city beach, which is the closest. The water was still warm enough to swim, but it was too windy for my and my cough. This beach is right beside the harbor and we could see the Alinghi crew practice for the Americas Cup in the year 2007.









This day we wanted to eat Paella. Felizitas knew a restaurant which is really nice and always full. So, we went to the restaurant at 8.30pm to get a table. Funny but true, the restaurant wasn’t open. We decided to wait, to make sure to get a table. We glued at these tables like a fly.



However, the Paella was to much salted and we were disappointed ?
The nightlife in Valencia starts at midnight. We enjoyed the nightlife in a small bar with a glass of “Agua de Valencia”
On Sunday we went to see the “Palau de les Arts”, a really futuristic construction and a must to see in Valencia.






Later on we went to the train station, to get the ticket to Barcelona. To our surprise most of the trains were full. We didn’t expect that you have to reservations your seat. It’s different than at home ;-)
So we didn’t have the 9am train, which we first planed to take. The next ticket which we got was 6 h later. Like that we had like an extra day in Valencia.
For dinner we ate some ”Tapas”. Tapas means plate, and like the name tells us, you order several small plates with different food. It was the best food in Valencia, I had.



Actually the next day we didn’t do many things. An other relaxing day in Valencia, some coffee, ice cream and feel the city life…
During the train ride to Barcelona Joan called me. Joan was also at the HIT this summer to do a trainee. It was really great, then he helped us to find a room. So we didn’t had to run through the whole city and to find a cheap room, what is like impossible in Barcelona. But he found us one cheap room, really in the center of the city, just great!
Arrived at Barcelona Sants, the train station, we updated us about the place of the Hostel and how to get there. In Barcelona are much more people and tourists than in Valencia. After some crossing with the Metro of Barcelona we found our Hostel. The first impression wasn’t so good. It was old and didn’t really look like a hostel. First we were scared a brothel. But the three old ladies were really nice and funny.
Until we organized our room and were ready to go out it was already 9pm. So we tried to find a restaurant. We wanted something special to eat. And exactly that we got. We went in a traditional Catalan restaurant and ordered some fishes and vegetables. To our surprise everything was uncooked and cold. We had really problems to eat, because we didn’t eat right the whole day and for dinner, this! We tried our best and left the Restaurant with a strange stomach.


The night ended with a crepe at the sea.



Because of our extra day in Valencia, we had just one real day in Barcelona. So we had to see as much as possible in this single day.
First we went to the Sagrada Familia, a futuristic church designed by Gaudi, like most of the famous buildings in Barcelona.



From there we walked to the Torre AGBAR. Another strange building. Some say it looks like a bullet, other see a vibrator. But the truth is that it should look like a geyser. If you know that then you also see how special it is colored.



The next stop was the Parc Guell. There you can easily spend half a day with walking and enjoy the strange places and sculptures in the park. During our visit of the park it started to rain. The Barcelona people said that we are something special, because not many people see Barcelona rainy.






After the rain we went to the next two Gaudi houses. The look like a house from atlantica.



At night we met Joan. It was funny to see him again, after China. We had many things to talk about. He brought us to a special seafood restaurant. It’s not really a restaurant, it’s more a seafood marked where you also can eat. We ordered kilos of seafood and a special wine from Spain. The food was really good and many things that I haven’t ate before.





Later we walked through the City and Joan told us about the buildings. Because he studies architecture, he knew many special buildings and specialties of catalunia.
The first Disco opens the doors at 0.30am. In Spain is everything later than in Switzerland. We went for some drinks in the Disco, but it wasn’t our music.
The next day, was our last day. We didn’t see anything because Felizitas felt bad, because of the Seafood. So, we packed our suitcases and went to the Airport to come back home.