Teatro Rialto

On another beautiful summer day in Spain we left Barcelona for our journey to Valencia, capital city of the state of Valencia famous for producing oranges (naranjas in Spanish).

On the way we had a stopover in a beautiful seaside town of Peniscola, a busy tourist location with a wide sweeping beachfront.

The town had an old walled village with a castle (castillo) and a church (iglesia) on the coast overlooking the beach and the blue Mediterranean. We spent a pleasant hour walking through the village finishing up with a cold beer (cerveza) and a calamari tapas.

This village, castle, and beachfront was where the historic movie El Cid (with Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren) was filmed.

Next stop was Valencia where we were taken to a restaurant to watch a paella cooking demonstration. The paella was not seafood based but rather was chicken and rabbit. We enjoyed it over a couple of glasses of Spanish wine.

Afterwards we explored the old town area of Valencia, looking at the old churches and buildings. We tried a traditional Valencian drink called horchata, which tasted like a very sweet almond milk.

Next stop was our hotel, Barcelo Valencia, which was located in the City of Arts and Sciences, a new modern precinct made up of a lot of museums housed in stunning modern architecture. With nearby shopping complexes and restaurants, this was a lively area well into the night.Read more