1 of December, it’s time to go to Valencia.
We joined the U3A coaches in Moraira, outside the Wok restaurant – a small crowd of U3A members already getting onboard. Since the trip was announced a few weeks ago, Carol and her travel colleagues just kept adding coaches, as there was so much interest. It was our first trip with the U3A, we wanted to see if we liked it.
We left a few minutes after 09:00, with the arrival scheduled for 11:00 in Valencia. This gave us time to chat with people in the seats next to us, friends from Spanish classes and other groups in which we participate.
In Valencia, the coaches stopped in a street between the Estación del Norte and the bullring, time to hit the town!
We had been to Valencia before so, rather than trying to see everything again, we decided to take a walk through the Turia gardens, to the City of Arts and Sciences. The weather was sunny and warm, just right for sightseeing. The gardens, arranged in the reclaimed river bed of the river Turia in 1957, were full of people practicing sports, mothers doing gym with babies, cyclists and, in general, people having fun. The river Turia, which meandered through Valencia, flooding it throughout history, was diverted in 1957 to end up directly in the sea, without endangering the city.
The sight of the spaceship-like buildings of the City of Arts and Sciences is always spectacular, so I got busy snapping pictures – so many interesting angles and things to photograph.
We went inside one of the buildings, the Museum of Science, more to see the architecture from the inside than the museum itself: it’s a good place to visit with children, lots of activities and experiments they can play with.
After walking around the City of Arts and Sciences, we headed back to the centre. We stopped for a leisurely drink in the sunshine, before joining the station. The Estación del Norte, built between 1909 and 1917 by Demetrio Ribes, is a jewel of Valencian modernism, well worth a visit. The main hall and the first room on the right have some interesting decoration, very elaborate and flowery.
Then it was 16:30, time to get on the coach, compare notes with our friends – and we were back in Moraira already. The day flew before we noticed it.
There is so much more to see and do in Valencia, so I am sure that we will be back, visiting a different part of town.
Thanks to Carol Mantle and her colleagues for organising the trip so well – we will be queuing up for more U3A Moraira-Teulada trips soon.