Valencia - City of Contrasts

Spain's 3rd largest city blends everything from the ultra modern to the ancient and everything in between. The water has been redirected away from the river which wends its way through town, so that the riverbed is now a large, very long park. Near the ocean and the former river's mouth are the aquarium, science museum, art museums and more; all of which are huge and futuristic in design. Imagine the movies Star Wars and Blade Runner and you are most of the way there. We could not stop taking photographs of them (by the way, clicking on images on this blog usually brings up larger versions). Over and over from what seemed to be every possible angle. It wasn't just the futuristic design, but those improbably forms set to an immense scale which had us agog. Fortunately these modern monuments eventually disappeared behind us as we walked through the park into the old city where we were surrounded by buildings from the time of Rome, the middle ages, the renaissance, and the current day. Definitely a feast for the eyes. In one park we stumbled across the tangled roots of three huge banyon trees and felt like we were back home on Maui.

We are now out at sea on our way to Gibralter. We had a magnificent meal at the ship's high end restaurant, Portraits, wearing our new suits. It will probably be another fifteen years before we have any reason to wear suits again. We will be sailing all day tomorrow which will give a chance to relax and take it easy.