Hello my pretties. I’ve just realised that I’ve officially passed the half way mark. Whilst this may be a glorious thing for you plebs, I’m torn between anticipating getting home and realising that my amazing trip is only on the downhill slide in terms of time. So it’s only 169 days or so till I get home….take it as you will.
We have just arrived in Madrid back from a few sweaty, sweaty days in Valencia. Apparently it’s not normally so humid there, but it was absolutely oppressive day and night. I didn’t want to go out walking because the combination of the 30-35 degree sun plus suffocating humidity didn’t really appeal to me, but unfortunately it wasn’t really too much better in our room – no air con, just a small fan and no matter what we tried, no air movement, leaving us in the thick, thick hot air.
As a consequence, we only really went exploring for one day. There were a lot of old pretty buildings around, including a beautiful gothic church (well, on the inside at least), and some old architecture that were remnants of the war-torn past. In particular there is a tower that marks what used to be a gate in a wall that surrounded the city, to which you can still see cannon holes in. There also used to be a river around two thirds of central Valencia, though it dried up a long time ago and the bed is now home to a beautiful park. We walked past and turned our noses up at the Colosseum-esque bull ring situated next door to the train station, though they were preparing for a motorbike festival.
In all honesty we didn’t do too much else – it was just too stinking hot. Valencia was quite nice but the weather really stopped us from going out – except at night, when we had some nice walks. We did try some horchata, which is a local sweet drink (kind of like liquid ice-cream) into which you dip yummy sweet pastries and think about how much you don’t want to go back outside.
We have been VERY practical the past few days though – I finished a work unit, posted some photo CDs home, Andrew posted some important thing off, bought a book on the Trans Siberian railway which has been impossible to find and we were thinking about ordering it online, changed our flights so that we’re not flying home in 2 weeks and confirmed all our accommodation in Morocco. Hurray!!
So, we are off to Morocco tomorrow, which I’m really looking forward to. I’m not going to do a summary of Spain yet, because we’re coming back for a few days before we go off to Switzerland (via Rome for a couple of days). Mind you, one of the things that I have thoroughly enjoyed here has been the wonderful metro systems that they have. You pay one euro and you get a one way trip to wherever the hell you like. They are fantastic systems that criss-cross (though drawing the networks would have been a nightmare) everywhere and gets you wherever you need to – hell, the one here in Madrid can get us out to the airport. Yay! Talk about saving twenty ish euros. I love you, Metro.
Not sure what internet access I’ll get in Morocco, so might get you in a week or two. Adios!
Valencia photos
