Valencia Part 5

Ariel of Hamble
Jim and Valerie SHURVELL
Tue 20 Oct 2009 09:21

Valencia    Part 5

 

October, 2009.

 

The marina is very nicely situated north of Valencia and it is also very convenient to catch the bus into town or the Metro direct to the airport.  The journey takes you along the water’s edge until it arrives at the beginning of the city when the bus heads inland.

The first stop on the bus is Puerto Saplaya which is an artificial marina with blocks of apartments and houses lining a series of waterways. The beaches on both sides of the harbour are very nice and people are still using them and swimming as the temperature here is still 28 to 30 degrees most days. We counted 35 surfers when the wind blew last week all having fun.  The area is served by a large hypermarket called “Elcampo” which appears to sell everything.  The large fish counter is particularly interesting.  They have every variety of fish available and in three large freezer cabinets are an amazing collection of frozen prawns, mussels etc. to make whatever paella you fancy. Needless to say Jim and I have visited this supermarket a couple of times and managed to be back at the bus stop at the correct time after timing it for a coffee and ice-cream stop.

The bus service also goes to El Puig in the opposite direction and we took the bus there on Saturday.  It is where the large monastery for the area is situated which we have been seeing in the distance on our return bus journeys from the city.  Although, we did not visit the monastery as we feared we would have problems understanding the tour guide and the opening times were inconvenient we did take the long walk to the gardens at the top of the hill which overlook the monastery. As you can see from the photographs it is a very large building and very grand looking which would have taken immense work and time to build.

The houses in the El Puig area are all very grand for Spain. We were very surprised that every house is surrounded by high iron railings and the front gate and garage gates are all locked.  Even visitors have to ring the house to be allowed entrance.  It all appears very over the top with bars at the windows and shutters everywhere.  Of course, a lot of the houses are left empty and someone somewhere may visit once and while but security is high priority in El Puig.  The town seemed very nice and why the security is necessary is quite a mystery.

The apartments are very nice also and most are only two floors high and face each other with a garden running the length of the apartment blocks.  The beautiful tiling is very evident all around this small town whether it is on the houses or in the small squares.

One road name we both thought funny was “Carre 9 D’Octubre” which must mean something to someone.

After walking around the town, having a very nice ice-cream and cup of coffee we had two options, read our books for two hours while waiting for the return bus or walk back to the marina.  The journey by bus had taken 12 minutes so it couldn’t take us long!  We walked half way in the sun shine and found a lovely garden outside a block of apartments open to the public with seats etc. and sat there for a while reading our books before we wandered back to the marina. We estimate it took us in walking time approximately one and half hours. It wasn’t hard as the sea view was with us most of the way.




JPEG image

JPEG image

JPEG image

JPEG image

JPEG image

JPEG image

JPEG image

JPEG image