August 02, 2006
Valencia
Apart from the wallet incident, I was having heaps of fun in Valencia. The next day after the incident I finally had some time to explore the old city. I went to see pretty much all the sights in Lonely Planet in the morning. You have to pay EUR3 to go inside the cathedral. I decided not to go, if hadn't got robbed the day before I might have gone in. Still feeling a bit angry and really really stupid from the whole incident.
The old city of Valencia is very beatiful, it's Spain third largest city, but it doesn't feel like it. To me it's like going to Lyon after Paris. This pretty much the same experience. There's a lot less tourist and the city is very enjoyable to explore on foot.
The Hostel
I stayed at Home Youth Hostel, the best hostel so far in my trip. This hostel is very cosy, funky and have such a good atmosphere. Everyone is very friendly and the staff are incredibly nice.
It's a chain of three hostel in Valencia, from the cheapest to the most expensive: Home Backpackers, Home Youth Hostel and Home Deluxe. I visited Home Backpackers on my last night in Valencia and found it to be a bit too comercial. It's very big and it feels like HI Hostel in a way, but with no families or children. The only problem that it can be unbearably hot and stuffy at night. Some of the rooms are not very well ventilated. People ended up just throwing the door wide open at night.
The Beach
On the afternoon we went to the beach. It's not much of a beach compared to the Australian beaches, I went only because it's too damn hot to do anything else and to say that I've finally had a dip in the mediteranean sea. As we sat down in the beach, two Australian guys that we met earlier in the hostel came and laid the towel right next to us. They didn't see us initially and I had to call them out. So here we are in Valencia, Spain, 4 strangers by chance sat next to each other on the beach. All of us were from Australia and we all came from Sydney northern suburbs. Cammeray, Roseville, West Pymble and St. Ives. It's a small world indeed.
To go to the beach take bus number 19 from Plaza Ayuntamiento until the terminus, this will get you as far as possible from the ugly working port of Valencia. On the way from the Ciutat Vella (old city), you get to see the modern Valencia. The funky new modern architecture of Valencia's City of Art complex and numerous apartment buildings.
Radio City
This place is worth a mention because if you stay at Home Youth Hostel you get a card to get a free sangria for the night. The place often went off, even if it's Monday night. A bit of warning, you won't find any local here and English is spoken everywhere. It's a traveller night club. In fact, since Barcelona I haven't been clubbing in a proper "Spanish" club. All have been travellers club, that shows how many tourists are here in Spain, and most of them are looking for the party.
We went for a bit of dancing at Radio City. I left a bit early because I'm feeling not well. Have been a bit sick since I left Barcelona and it's getting worse.
Toward Madrid
I initially want to take the 9AM bus from Valencia to Madrid. But I love the hostel so much I hang around for breakfast. I went to the internet cafe to write my long post about the incident in Valencia. It's good to be able to vent off like that. Back to the hostel to cook my lunch and hang around for a bit. They are such a nice hostel, they let people hang around well until they check-out. It's big enough to have enough variety of people but still small for the staff to get to know everyone and have the good atmosphere. I think this is the most ideal hostel size.
When I finally get to the bust station at 3:30pm, I bumped into the three Italian girls who were in the same hostel room with me in Barcelona. It's such a small world.
No Habla Español
No one speak English in Valencia´s bus station, but somehow I managed to get my ticket. Getting to the right platform is even more troublesome. There's no information whatsoever like the train station does. There's something about Coche 2, Plaza 15 in my ticket. I thought that's platform number 15. God know what Coche 2 means. Fortunately I thought that my luck has not been very good in the past few days I tried to find information from the information desk. Naturally he doesn't speak a single word of English. I gave him my ticket and he wrote 22. Right ....
Down in platform 22 there were a few people waiting. I peeked to one of the lady's e-ticket and it says Valencia - Madrid. Yep I think I'm in the right platform and when the bus arrived with a big sign Valencia - Madrid I'm very sure that I won't end up in Granada. It was a pleasant 4 hours drive to Madrid with 20 minutes toilet break halfway through.
I'm in Madrid now, currently on my second night here (only a day behind on my blog post now), my cold is definitely getting worse, I need to rest it in the next few days to recover. The hostel has air-con for a change, there's a weird bearded French guy, who doesn't seem to ever leave the hostel, snores very loudly and wants to sleep without air-con. He was out-voted by the seven of us who are still sane.
Posted by vhadiant at August 2, 2006 11:13 PM
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