Travel Diary: Final Day in Valencia :(

As this was the last full day we were to spend in Valencia, we thought we'd get in some well-deserved  rest and relaxation, so we headed to the beach!

After having lots to do and cover over the last few days it was nice to just bask in the sun, chat and play card games!

This was followed by a quick wade in the sea...

I even got a hair feather put in, despite it actually being the last day of our holiday!





Post beach-excursion, we visited a funfair we'd seen a few days ago...

Although I'm not a fan of rides I am a pro at dodgems...

After a delightful time at the fair we retired to our apartment where we watched one of our favourite movies which reminded us of home, where we would soon return...






Thanks for reading! :)

Travel Diary: Valencia - A Day In Town

We knew the town-centre of Valencia would be a beautiful and cultural place, so we dedicated a whole day to exploring!

We hopped off the bus near the Town Hall of Valencia, which is a beautiful building surrounded by pretty gardens and a lovely fountain.
After taking some time to admire the gardens, we did a spot of shopping in nearby shops. Most of them were souvenir shops with a few cute boutiques around too!
With our shopping needs met, we started a lengthy stroll to Valencia Cathedral when we found some amazing street art!













After some photos were taken we carried on to the Cathedral...

The Cathedral was huge and from then outside itself looked ornate decorated. Once inside we purchased a walking audio tour and were able to wonder around the Cathedral listening to it and following the little map given.







The frescos, paintings, sculptures and architecture inside the Cathedral were stunning!

The audio tours took us to each section and specific features of the cathedral and told us the story behind them.

After a few hours and a quick lunch, we headed to the Plaza de la Virgen where we sat at the the beautiful Turia Fountain talking and taking in the sun and atmosphere...

We rounded off the busy day with dinner at a Chinese Restaurant, followed by cocktails at a cute bar called Bar Code...

Thanks for reading! :) xx

Travel Diary: Night Out in Valencia - Loco Club

Being a huge lover of music and avid goer of gigs and festivals, I was over the moon when we managed to fit in time to go to a club that had a live band!

As we neared we could hear a few guitar chords eminating from the club...

The fact that the doors leading to the club had "Rock and Roll All Nite" splashed over them gave me hope that the music would be my kind of stuff!





The venue walls were lined with Vinyl Records and there was a small shrine dedicated to Rock and Roll!










The decor of the place and the atmosphere perfectly matched the sound of the band; fun and loud!
Despite the music being in Spanish, soft rock transcends language and I really enjoyed the music!

Often it's the atmosphere and company that makes a night a good one and fortunately both were excellent at Loco Club!

I've searching for a place similar to this is England but I haven't seen anything comparable!
Let me know if you know anywhere similar!

Thanks for reading :)

Travel Diary: Valencia - City of Arts and Sciences

Another of Valencia's huge tourist attraction is The City of arts and Sciences. It's a series of elaborate buildings, some structured to in someway represent what they house! For example L'Hemispheric which is an IMAX cinema was constructed to look like a giant eye and the L'Oceanographic, an aquarium, was fashioned to resemble a Water Lily...

Our first stop was the L'Oceanographic which is the largest aquarium in Europe...

Each section houses creatures from specific aquatic conditions such as the Wetlands or the Arctic sections. Although all the sections were pretty impressive, my favourite was the Mediterranean because you just can't beat being surrounded by sharks and fish in a classic aquarium style glass tunnel!

We also visited the Principe Felipe Science Museum, which was full of scientific facts and some lovely pieces of art...

The museum itself is quite overwhelming as there's a lot of topics covered! However the second floor has an area where you can really get involved and play with all sorts of instruments, so if you don't know where to start, thats the place!

Although we only spent a day at The City of Arts and Sciences, there's so much to do and see that we could easily have spent several!

If ever I'm fortunate to visit Valencia again, I will certainly try to block out a couple of days to visit this place again!

Thanks for reading :) 

Travel Diary: Night out in Valencia - Hawaika

One of the things we really liked about Valencia when we were in the process of decided where to go, was the nightlife!

We'd all been out in town and at parties of all kinda at home, so we were on the hunt for unusual bars and clubs that we don't get in England and we really hit the jackpot in Valencia!

When we found Hawaika on TripAdvisor, we were instantly excited! As all of us enjoy cocktails we thought this was the place to go!

(A post on clubbing/party make-up and outfit worn here coming very soon!)

When we walked into Hawaika, leis were bestowed upon us...















We were given a drinks list and the variety was astounding!
(I ordered the delicious Crepuscul del Amor)

Our drinks were brought to us by a hula girl, who set them down and poured dry ice into pockets in the elaborately decorated glasses. The whole experience was fabulous!
It was only made better by being given enormous straws to drink them with...

The whole experience from the decor of the bar, the hospitality of the hula girls, the way the drinks were presented, the music and the atmosphere was first class!

You can click on the links to check out their TripAdvisor, Instagram and Facebook to see more pictures and menus!

Travel Diary: Valencia Biopark

Despite being absolutely shattered from the events of the day before, we somehow managed to get ourselves up and out of our appartment and to one of Valencia's biggest tourist attractions; the Bioparc!

I'm not a fan of Zoos, however the Bioparc has many conservation and educational aims as well as housing (most) animals in habitats that are true to their natural ones and much more spacious than your regular zoo.


There was so many animals to see and so much to do! There's no explanation or commentary needed  for the following pictures, as the beauty of the land and animals speak for themselves! But I've added a few captions from things that were said on the day or sent in snapchats that fill me with nostalgia...

Who doesn't like a "stripey horse"?!

If you squint you might be able to make out the elephants?

Siesta time for this Gorilla!

Sergei was not on the mood to give us a quote on car insurance...

After some unrelenting shouting and rapping on the glass was unsuccessful in waking up the sleeping lion, an un-named friend suggested;

"Somebody cut themselves to wake him up!"

Despite feeling as tired as the lion, our day did not end after visiting the Bioparc...

(More to come soon!)

Travel Diary: Valencia Hot Springs Tour

Our third day in Valencia was a polar opposite to the lazy one the day before, we decided to do a Hot Springs Tour that we'd found on TripAdvisor.

We were picked up from our hotel and taken to town in a minivan, where we switched to a coach and headed out to the outskirts of Valencia.

Our first stop was a waterfall called the Brides Veil.

It's an old tradition, that brides to be had to jump from one bank to the other, underneath the fountain before getting married. If they succeeded, their marriage would be happy!

Our next stop was lunch, where some of us sampled tapas at local restaurant, followed by some unusual wine tasting...

After Lunch, we drove to the Hot Springs

We swam a mile or so from the area shown above, to the Hot Spring area, where there was a palpable difference between the temperatures of the water surrounding us and of the springs and streams.
We also swam to a mini cliff, where a few of our group were able to go cliff jumping.

Post Cliff-Jumping Selfie

After visiting the springs, we took a short hike to our final stop, a Dam...

We thoroughly enjoyed the tour! Our guide Diego was excellent and our group contained people from Croatia, Australia, New York, Columbia and even Manchester giving us lots to talk about!

I can't recommend this tour enough, so if you're in the vicinity, GO FOR IT!