Historical Valencia

Today, with me as their guide, the three of us explored the older historical part of Valencia. The first thing we did was climb the bell tower of the centuries old Catedral de Valencia, called El Miguelete. It was a dizzying, circular journey of about 300 stony steps to the top, but the views were well worth it. From there, you can see the whole city: from the modern Arts & Sciences buildings to the old churches, and from the busy port to the beautiful beach. Once we took some great photos, we headed back down inside the church. There was a funeral going on that morning, so we weren’t able to walk around as much as you normally could. That didn’t stop us from seeing the real “Holy Grail” though! This church is rumored to have the real true original holy grail in it--  the Vatican in Rome even approves this as the most likely candidate. Little known fact about Valencia!

Catedral de Valencia

View of Valencia from El Miguelete

Plaza de la Virgen

Once we left the church and got some water (it was so hot!!), we began walking through the beautiful architecture near the Plaza de la Virgen. The buildings have an almost Islamic feel to them, despite the fact that the country is now 95% Catholic. We enjoyed the unique views, and Christina and I made Greaham imitate the classic pose of the man in front of the fountain in the main square. After that, we decided to head towards the Torres de Serranos. Up to this point in the day, I had already seen all of these sights before, but this was new for me. Apparently, this tower structure was one of the gates that ran along the medieval city walls. There were no signs or information anywhere on site, so while we climbed the tower to see the views and explored a bit, we really had no idea what we were looking at. It was still a pretty cool thing to see though. I later looked up the history of it, and found this out: “the towers were commenced in 1394, and although built with a defensive function in mind, they never came to be used as such, merely cruising through history as a decorative trade gate of Valencia. Between 1586 and 1887 they were used as a prison for the nobility (much like the Tower of London) which is why they survived the liquidation of the city walls in 1865."

Torres de Serranos

Greaham imitates the fountain

Matadors at the Plaza de Torros

After we had our fill of climbing steps, we headed back to the Plaza for lunch. I decided to treat myself to a gofre, a Spanish dessert consisting of waffles and nutella, MMmm! We then decided to head over to the Mercado Central. We walked for about 20 minutes, but sadly once we got there we realized it was closed since it was Sunday. The next thing we did was head back towards the Plaza de Torros to buy tickets for the bull fight that night. After some relaxation in the hotel, we headed over to the Plaza for the show. I went to one of these back in 2007, and thought it was an extremely depressing spectacle. Since my friends really wanted to go though, I decided to humor them. The bull fight this time was just as I remembered. A decorative cultural display of grown men torturing poor bulls that stand no chance of winning the “fight”. It is neat to go and see all the people that get really into it, but being an animal lover I just ended up leaving feeling sad. The photos of the matadors are neat, but everything else is bloody and sad. To finish off our evening, we had some tapas and sangria near our hotel- that helped us forget about the poor dead torros. 

Ole! Poor bull, look at all the blood :(