Our campsite is located outside of Valencia about 40 minutes by train. Ton has been looking forward to Valencia for a couple of days particularly the market which is the largest in Europe. The downtown has a new and old feel simultaneously that we liked. Once again the old town is great for walking with very few cars in it.
We started at the market which is immense. It is an old iron building which seems to have been popular for markets in Spain and France during the late 1800’s. We spent quite a bit of time just walking from stall to stall enjoying the sights and smells of the different foods. We ended up buying some spices at one of the stalls.
After shopping was done we decided to have a Spanish specialty that we had been seeing, Churro’s and Chocolate. We found a street food stall that was highly recommended by the spice lady in the market. It was an interesting variation of the churro’s we have in the US and Mexico. The churros are designed to be dipped in the chocolate, and the chocolate is quite a bit thicker than we serve it at home. They were delicious.
We then walked around the old town and took some pictures of the usual suspects. Valencia has a nice large cathedral, but they were charging an admission fee so we passed. We also looked at a couple of nice churches and some remnants of the old fortifications.
Having walked around a bit we decided it was time to have some Paella. Valencia has its own version of Paella that includes chicken, rabbit and chick peas. We wandered past 15 or 20 restaurants before settling on a place. We did good in picking the restaurant, there was some confusion as we understood that we would get to pick a first course each from a list of 3 first courses, and one of the main courses. We had decided to go with a seafood paella and a Valencia paella for the main course, but when Ron went to pick the 1st courses the guy explained in his best English that we did not get to pick. We were a little confused until he brought out all three 1st courses, we did not get to pick because we got them all. By the time we were done we were completely stuffed.
On the way to Valencia we had met an English couple Patrick and Jessie. They had given us some good tips. We happened to meet them walking back to the campground, and ended up joining them for drinks at the campground bar. One thing led to another and we ended up in their RV where they filled our brains with information about Spain, and Ron tried to convince them to come to the US for a vacation. It was a great way to end a good day.