Valencia is often forgotten in the midst of Madrid and Barcelona. Perhaps it is seen as a step down compared to the two biggest cities in Spain. This inaccurate view, however, does help in redirecting hoards of tourists, who prefer visiting her more talked about siblings, and ensuring Valencia remains one of Europe’s best kept secrets. Valencia leaves you perplexed with vast amounts of treasury from the heart of the old town to the modern metropolis of the City of Arts and Sciences.

Getting there

So back in November I booked some cheap flights out to Krakow with some friends. I sent off my old battered passport to be renewed around two months in advance without a worry. After a month of sneaking into pubs I called the passport office. Basically whatever could have gone wrong did; they lost my photos, they couldn’t send it to my Glasgow address etc – it arrived the afternoon after the morning my friends flew out to Poland. In a fit of emotion I called two other friends and we had booked flights out to Valencia within 2 hours for the following weekend (very cheaply on Ryanair I may add).

‘3 Bed Apartment’

Valencia’s heart remains in the Medieval Old Town Centre. The nature of how quickly we booked the trip meant our accommodation was questionable. We were shown our ‘3 bed apartment’, a very grandiose term for one room with a couple of duvets and it was on the 10th floor in a fairly rough looking area. Thankfully Robbie and Kyle’s Spanish is up to scratch so we gained the respect of the locals and found ourselves on our building’s roof terrace with 60 cans of ‘Gold Beer’ that cost 20 cents each.

Exploring the Old Town

Valencia’s heart is situated in the medieval old town centre. We took the, what Kyle and I had branded horrible but Robbie adamantly called delicious, ‘Gold Beer’ with us and walked towards the old town. It took us over an hour because we stopped frequently at parks and gardens to have a can and to be fair to Robbie, they were beginning to taste nicer. As we got closer to the centre it became slightly overwhelming, there were just too many things to appreciate all at once. We approached the Cathedral of Our Lady which is situated between two cosy medieval plazas. We wandered inside but quickly felt rather uncomfortable carrying around Spanish lager in such a historic cathedral whilst a service was taking place and decided to leave. We looked up the cathedral spire and promised each other we would return during the day to climb the tower.

We then strolled through some back streets. It was around 8pm at this stage and the city was just beginning to wake up. The El Carmen district is in the old town and despite being one of the more famous areas in Valencia, still maintains its authentic charm. The area was filled with quirky looking bars and pop up art galleries. We had booked the holiday so late that none of us had looked particularly thoroughly into what we should do, so it was a pleasant surprise to accidentally stumble through an area as nice as this one was. We sat down for some food and beer where Robbie found an item on the menu he didn’t know how to translate. It was fried pig’s face. He ordered it and the less said about it the better.

With some food in our bellies we left the bar and got lost in some more side streets. We walked past some shops and took advantage of being away from Scotland and not having to buy alcohol before 10pm. The woman in the shop scanned three bottles of wine and a chocolate bar with the total price amounting to just over £4 – it was at that point that I realised I would not be touching ‘Gold Beer’ again. Kyle asked the woman if we could use a bottle opener to remove the corks in our bottles and we made our way back to another plaza, this time on the other side of the cathedral – Plaza de la Virgen.

I’ll remember Plaza de la Virgen for many reasons. The obvious reason would be its beauty; the street and moon light that bounces of the marble floor, the relaxing sound of the fountain, the little apartments and churches that lie in the shadows of the cathedral. Another would be how interesting it is to people watch. So many different characters walk to and from the square and we sat for an hour with several bottles of red wine and talked shite about every single one of them. Another memory, well this is more of a rule now, is that it is not a good place to try and buy weed. If a man approaches you offering you a large amount for 20 euros don’t agree just because you’re feeling gallus after a couple bottles of wine. Obviously, I am not speaking from personal experience, this happened to some other stupid tourist we saw. I bet he spent his entire trip looking out for the man that scammed him and it would have distracted him from having a good time. Thank Christ it wasn’t me. Here is a video of him before he lost his 20 euros showing how happy he was:

Bits & Bobs

The City of Arts and Sciences is worth a look. We popped our heads in and the art wasn’t to ur taste but the buildings and structures make it spectacular without going inside.

We walked through the Turia Gardens on our last day. It was a lovely way to see the city and relax slightly. It is filled with stunning bridges and buildings for the duration of the walk.

The Castles are well worth a visit and a climb. Especially if you are with someone who is as nervous with heights as Robbie is. The staircases and gaps were very open and after some drinks the climb gave us an adrenaline rush.

We returned to the cathedral like we promised ourselves. The Cathedral of our Lady tower is well worth a climb. It amounted to around 70 metres and gave a stunning few of Valencia.

The Food & Drink goes without saying. Valencia is the home of paella, beautiful and cheap wine as well as the now iconic, well at least in my friend circle, ‘Gold Beer’.

The transport, it is worth knowing is all joined up. The underground and the tram are interlinked which made it very easy to manoeuvre once we got the hang of it (on our last day).

The boys Instagrams:

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