Valencia

The second weekend of my mom's visit we took her to Valencia, Spain.  We went there soon after we had moved here, and we have always wanted to return.

The City of the Arts and the Sciences

  We started out at the beautiful City of the Arts and Sciences with the futuristic architecture.

The interesting architecture makes for fun pictures.

Including the landscaping.

Oceanografic

The Oceanografic was part of the City of Arts and Sciences. It is the largest aquarium in Europe.

The aquarium included some outside exhibits. 

 

 Kaiya took this incredibly artistic photo with her Ipad. 

The aquarium also included several buildings of indoor exhibits of all kinds of large and small creatures....

..., including this huge creepy crawling crustacean.  

My favorite exhibit is always the angelic jellyfish and how they move around so gracefully.  Interestingly in Spanish they are called "Medusas".

 Inside the Igloo in "The Polar Regions".

 

This is a white whalphin, aka "beluga".

It was enchanting to watch the belugas swim around.

This heavenly creature is just a walrus.

This walrus entertains himself with a ball.

An aquarium isn't complete without the adorable penguins.

There were also lots of scary sea creatures here...

...including different types of sharks.

Here's Kaiya being fearless.

Here's Kamree showing she's serious about wanting a pet of any kind.

Here's Morgan trying to kiss this gorgeous fish.

Also included in the Aquarium is a typical dolphin show.

Morgan was selected during a dance-off to get to touch this dolphin.

Right after the dolphin show, Morgan was selected in the Red Sea Auditorium to be part of it's show and to communicate with the scuba diver.  He was rewarded with a shark tooth.

Riverbed Park-after the aquarium

The kids would not have let us return from Valencia without getting to climb all over this grand play structure again. 

The Gulliver Park was the kids' favorite memory from the previous trip to Valencia.

Kids of all ages enjoyed sliding down this part of Gulliver.

 

Based on the tune of the yelling, grandmas enjoy it too.

I'm guessing you can go faster with a running start up the side.

Morgan would run up so high, I was afraid he was going to run over the side.

 Fearlessly walking the sword.

  

Xátiva-the next day

 Xátiva has an incredible amount of history including some Neanderthal remains and other artifacts that were found in the "Cova Negra"- (a black cave) just outside of town that dates from 30,000 years BC.  In the 12th century, Arabs brought the technology to manufacture paper to Xàtiva.

 Castle of Xátiva

This enormous castle has 30 towers, 10th century walls and history that dates back to 200 B.C..  The current castle is the result of the fusion of an Iberian-Roman fortress and later an Arab one.

This photo is taken from the lower Iberian Castle looking towards the upper Roman Castle. 





This photo is taken from the upper Roman Castle looking towards the lower Iberian Castle. 

We explored the Roman Castle side first.  This place was quite incredible even with much of it in ruins...


...and parts that are recently and obviously rebuilt.

I don't think they normally aimed the cannon at themselves, but it's clear they could.  This is one of 3 bronze canons that were recasted in 1690.

Morgan looks like he's seen a ghost. Nope, just a little snake.

This is just outside the back entrance to the castle unfittingly named the "Relief Gate".  From the picture it looks like the boys are taking turns smacking poor Kamree. Mason was apparently trying to comfort her and Morgan has his hands up claiming he didn't do anything.  Hmm, what do you think? 

If there had been internet cafe's 100's of years ago this is what they would have looked like.  

 They were just as comfortable as they look.

The chain mail (behind Morgan) is so heavy one has to wonder how they could fight while wearing it.  They absolutely wouldn't flee with it on.  

At the bottom to the right is the chapel of the upper castle and was reconstructed in the early 1400's.

This is inside the Gothic Chapel.  Apparently several of the castle's prisoners are buried here from the 1400's. 

A better view of the amazing 15th century ceiling.

On the bottom right are two Gothic arches from the 15th century.  I think repairs are well over due, apparently they haven't been done since 1580.




 This is the outside entrance to the Prison.

The tiny inside opening to where several prisoners from the 1200's to the 1500's were kept.

Morgan and Mason fit well through the doorway so they were our prisoner models inside the dungeon.  On the sides you can see where chains were fastened to the wall.

No that is not a ticket booth, it's a very deep cistern still with perhaps centuries old water.

Now we are within the Iberian castle side.

 This is a two-seater? Gents and Ladies?

Looking toward the Roman castle from the Iberian castle.

We're not sure what kind of flower this is but it was quite beautiful.

More fascinating flowers.

 Ancient meets modern.  Not a fan of this blend of style.  

El Castillo Corbera

After leaving Xativa, we headed to the beach (the kids' reward for letting us explore the previous castle) and we drove past this amazing castle and knew we needed to explore it as well.



We got as close as we could to the castle, parked and began our trek up the hillside.

It wasn't long before we realized that the vegetation all around the castle would make it nearly impossible to reach the castle.

I doubt even Sleeping Beauty's prince could get through this briar thicket?  With enough persistence we likely could have driven to the other side of the castle and perhaps found an actual pathway to the castle entrance.  We gave up after several wrong turns/dead ends in the old village labyrinth below the castle just off the freeway. 




Our crazy GPS often sends us along questionable routes, which sometimes we don't follow.  This one we thought it had to have been joking, but soon realized it was the quickest shot to get to the other side of the freeway.  



We had been in tight streets before so why not.  Surprisingly, we made it through both of these tunnels with the mirrors untouched.  

Beach in Cullera

 We eventually made it to this beautiful white sandy beach.

I meant, a beautiful white seashell beach. 

 I have no idea what was going on here.   Perhaps, follow the leader or Brent was simply showing them how to find seashells.

 Imagine the face plant ....  The sand was seriously soft and perfect for Morgan to practice his flips...

 over and....

 ...over again.

 

After we, the adults got bored at this beach we packed up and drove along the coast to find a different one.  Somehow kids never seem to get bored when they have an endless sandbox.

 In addition to the sand at the next beach they also had a boat.

We thought this would get old soon enough.

But it never did for them.

They could have done this all afternoon, and inevitably we had to again drag them from a beach. 

Church in Valencia

The next morning, before heading home we went to this beautiful large meetinghouse for church with a ward smaller than ours and a drinking fountain.  We were just a bit envious. 



On our drive home, we pulled off the road in front of this castle to eat lunch, unfortunately is was too frigid and windy to get out and walk around it. 

A few of the many brightly colored fields on our way home.