Laowai

We chose Valencia for our vacation because of a cheap air fare – we didn’t know we would like it so much. Lots of photos!

We spent just little time in the old town area. The girls were preocupied with their promised ice creams. I’m not showing the photos of Bea with her give me my ice cream pouty face – good grief.

Oooh – big candy store:

Valencia used to have a river running through it. After a major flood in 1957 they decided to divert the river and then the river bed was turned into a 7 kilometer park area. It’s really nice because it runs right through town and lots of people can enjoy it. The cool part (literally) are the many old bridges that you walk under – they give you some nice restful shade and they are so interesting to see from the underside.

The girls were really good walkers. We walked all the way from the old town down to our hotel – stopping to see all the interesting trees and playgrounds and fountains along the way.

This playground was within the old riverbed park. It’s a huge Gulliver from Gulliver’s Travels and you can climb and slide all over him. 

We spent most of one day in this area called the City of Arts and Science. All the curvey white buildings were designed by Santiago Calatrava who coincidentally designed Stadelhofen – one of the main train stations in Zurich that Brian travels through most everyday. The design of the buildings definitely reminded us of the Gaudi architecture we saw in Barcelona.

There are a bunch of museums and performance areas within the City of Arts and Sciences but we were only inerested in the penguins. We went straight to the aquarium.

We were there pretty early so we were lucky enough to have the penguin exhibit all to ourselves. Bea bliss. 

One last kid friendly activity before we had to hop on a plane and head home. We rented one of these bike buggy things and took another trip through the old riverbed park.

Look at all those smiles.