Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Valencia and Paella

The next day we set off for Valencia, the third largest city in Spain that is famous for their oranges. It was in Valencia that we had the popular Spanish dish paella, or saffron rice cooked in a gigantic flat wok for lunch. Later on in the tour, my fellow travellers would attribute our bad fortune on this tour to this big wok since "tai wok" meaning big wok in Cantonese can refer to deep trouble.


En route to our lunch, we drove past the new town and since the America Cup yacht race was being held in Valentia, there were ample reminder of this fact.

After lunch, we visited the ultra modern City of Science and Arts that include a planetarium, IMAX cinema and Europe's largest marine park.



From the modern to the ancient and off to the old city centre, first passing the city gate into a pedestrian walk to the city square.




The weather has improved since we arrived in Spain and what better place to enjoy a cold ice-cream and the refreshing local drink, horchata, an almond base milk something like the local soya bean milk. Near the square was the Cathedral.


Next stop was the historical La Lonja Silk Exchange but it was closed for the Spanish afternoon siesta. Instead, we visited another church and the ornamental market nearby.


From Valencia, we went to Alicante along the coastal resort area of Costa Blanca. We spent the night at Alicante before moving on to Granada.

Ronald Kwok
http://cbpirate.com/s/cbp/ronaldkwok


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