It did mean getting up quite early to shower and finish packing - too early, also, for breakfast at the hotel, which started at 7.30. We didn’t think at the time that that would be a problem, but we were wrong, as I will explain later.
While we could have caught the metro to get to Barcelona Sants, the train station we were leaving from, I didn’t want to risk missing the train - something more likely when it was so early in the morning and we had so little time to spare. I’m glad we did take that option as it was very busy at the station and (compared to the trains we were catching in Europe in 2019) it was harder to get to the platforms, including having to stop for a bag scan.
We of course ended up at the wrong end of the platform for the carriage our seats were on, so we had to leg it from halfway along the fairly lengthy train to get there and then try to work out where we were; the display on the side of the carriage was unhelpfully changing between 11 and 12 (we were on 12). I thought I’d done well to get us seats in the slightly higher class (eglise, I think) but when we found them and saw that we’d inadvertently got two of the seats in the only section where you have to awkwardly face other people across a table, I realised that I’d chosen poorly.
I mean, it’s not terrible to have to sit opposite someone, but had I know that’s what this was, I’d have chosen something else. At least we didn’t, unlike on many of the train journeys we’d been on in 2019, find that there were people sitting in our assigned seats and have to argue with them to get them to move. We did have three more trains journeys ahead, though, so it’s still possible we’ll have to do that at least once.
Earlier I mentioned not having the opportunity for breakfast; that turned out to be a problem because we couldn’t do what we thought we’d be able to do (and had done in train stations before), which is to find food at the station itself before getting on the train. But because you can’t go back out to where the shops are once you’ve gone through security, we couldn’t do that. The backup plan was to buy food on the train itself, as they advertise that food is available - but then that didn’t happen either, though some of the people in our section were brought food much like what you get on the plane. Not sure if that was something you could order beforehand, or was included in the cost of a more premium ticket option.
We probably could have survived, but Rochelle had at various points of the trip so far bought chips, nuts and muffins, so we had to settle for that. After the three (or so) hour journey, we arrived in Valencia and hopped off the train ready to explore. After getting on the wrong bus - well, the right bus; it was just going in the wrong direction - we found our apartment.
First thing we needed to do after checking in and hauling our luggage up to our eighth floor apartment - a fairly big apartment; two bedrooms - was to find some food so we set out on foot for a wander around the area nearby. It didn’t take us long to find a decent-looking place where we got some tasty Spanish-style baguettes. After that we picked up some stuff from the grocery store - everything seemed so much bigger compared to Barcelona - and went back to the apartment.
Given we'd been in country for around a week it was time to take part in that oh-so-important ritual of lengthy holidays: doing laundry. The best option, of course, is to have access to some kind of laundry service (either in the place you're staying or somewhere convenient) that doesn't cost more than throwing away your clothes and buying new ones (not kidding; this is true for me in both London and Brussels); after that (in order) is machines in the apartment, machines in the building, and a commercial laundromat somewhere nearby. Last of all would be washing your own clothes in a sink, but thankfully I've never been faced with that.
We had machines in our building, so we purchased some tokens from the front desk and trudged down the stairs to set to it. We'd been told the washing machine was about 40 minutes and the dryer 45. We had a walking tour with wine and tapas to meet up for at 5.00, but there was plenty of time as long as the time they'd told us was accurate.
Turns out they were wrong.
It'd gotten well past 45 minutes in the dryer without it looking like it was going to finish, and we determined after checking that they were still damp. But we had to be in town for the tour (this wasn't just a walking tour where you pay a few Euros and tip the guide at the end; we'd paid quite a lot for this one because of the food and wine) so out came the damp laundry and on it went on the clothes airer Rochelle extracted from the front desk staff as payment for having misinformed us.
We were running late by this time, so instead of doing the interesting walk through town we'd expected we'd be able to do with half an hour up our sleeves, we caught a cab. But cabs in Valencia aren't terribly expensive, and we managed to get there with a few minutes to spare.
We found the others in the group and chatted to them for a bit before our guide (Danny) showed up and we kicked off.This was one of the best tours I've been on in the years I've been travelling. The first half (walking through the Old Town and learning about the city) was great, but the second half (tapas and wine) was phenomenal. Obviously a lot of this depends on the group you're with, and ours was excellent - us, some Americans, some Canadians, some Brits and one Dutch guy.
One of them was a nuclear engineer (we all laughed about the only other person with that job description that anyone had ever heard of was Homer Simpson) and another guy was another kind of engineer, but one who'd moved into the field of incinerator toilets.
Because this was the kind of group where things like this happen, one of the other people in the group - a farmer from Ottawa - was genuinely in the process of looking into buying an incinerator toilet, and so she got his details in order to work out a deal of some kind. Another of the Canadians turned out to be a peanut farmer, and we got a good explanation on how peanuts are grown (I thought they grew on trees; boy, was I wrong).
We started out a bit chatty, but once the wine started flowing it was like we'd all known each other all our lives. We swapped interesting travel anecdotes and other stories, and just had a great time. It was actually a bit sad when the night came to an end. But it did, and we (somewhat drunkenly, for the second night in row) walked back to our apartment - which was now full of our drying clothes.
Yes, that is a person in a giant panda suit. Not sure why.
Marks made by the executioner sharpening his axe before, well, using it.
That ass, though.
The place we were to have dinner and drinks. Well, not this room per se; that was a relic from when the city had multiple faiths and a law against fraternisation. This was apparently where people came to express their forbidden love.
First course. The olives were amazing; I have to try and track them down in Australia. The wine was cava, the local sparkling white. There was also cheese with quince paste and an amazing date with blue cheese and a walnut.
Cheese, sundried tomato, olive tapenade on a wafer.
I can't remember exactly what these were. Something between a quiche and a frittata.
The dining table.
Gazpacho, with jamon on top.
Quail eggs with more jamon.
Again, the specifics evade me, but it's essentially cheese covered in pork mince on bread, then deep fried.
The first one that I didn't enjoy - squid ink rice. Wasn't very pleasant. There was also a small serve of paella, but I didn't get a picture of that.
Dessert. I think it was lemon-flavoured something with ice cream. But I do remember it was excellent.
Some more street art on the way home.
Us with Danny, the tour guide.
The streets of Valencia.
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