We couldn’t check in until 2:00 so we just
left our luggage in storage and explored a few things in town we knew we had to
see. First we went to the market which
was conveniently located just a couple of streets over. It was similar to the Barcelona and Madrid
markets, but if I had to rank them I’d say Barcelona’s was the best with
Valencia as a close 2nd.
Again there was a lot of seafood here! Being so close to the ocean you
could just tell that it was really fresh.
We’d been waiting all week to try authentic Paella because
we knew that it originated in Valencia so the first thing we ate was Valencian
Paella from one of the market vendors with a stuffed bell pepper. We arrived in Valencia at the start of their
annual Las Fallas festival. Basically,
they build these HUGE paper mache and wooden sculptures and display them throughout
the town. During the week they narrow
them down by burning them until only the best falla is left! Then they announce the builder of that falla
as the winner and burn it too! The day
we arrived all of the fallas had been finished being set up…. They were
literally on every single corner—some were very small and others were
humongous.
Everyday at 2:00pm in Plaza del Ayuntamineto they have “Mascletas” where they
basically set fireworks off in the middle of the day for about 8 minutes. The show is not for the lights but for the
noise and vibrations. If you get close
enough you can literally feel the ground shaking and the whole area just
throbs, its pretty crazy. Eric and I
started making our way towards the square early so we could get up close. Our hostel told us that this weekend there
would be close to 100,000 people in Valencia trying to get into that
square. On our way we passed another
sculpture that is tradition for the week- the Virgin Mary. They build a wooden virgin Mary (no she is
NOT burned) and throughout the week they fill her in with flower donations from
the people.
Since we were there at the very start there weren’t any
flowers on her yet, but I looked it up and she looks beautiful at the end!
We also stopped and looked in the Valencia Cathedral.
There was only a very limited section you could get into for free but it
was really pretty.
On the way into the square everyone is out and there are
performers, people walking around with coolers selling beers and waters, and
people hanging from every balcony and rooftop you can see from the square.
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| The video and this picture show the crowd... it felt about 100 degrees being so squished |
Somehow Eric and I managed to squeeze ourselves very close
to the center. We waited for 45 minutes
for it to start. At the
center of the plaza there was also a huge falla that was a pretty funny
interpretation of tourists that come to Valencia.
When the fireworks started the whole ground was shaking and
smoke filled the street. You could only see a glimpse of red light shoot into the air before all of the loud noises went
off. It was definitely a neat experience.
Another fun thing about las Fallas is that the kids are
literally running around 24 hours a day throwing fireworks on the ground… some
are really loud too!! At first it startled me every time one went off but by
the end of the weekend I didn’t even seem to notice because it was so
common. After the Mascletas we went back
to officially check into the hostel and make a plan for the day. It was supposed to be cloudy on Saturday so
we decided while it was such a beautiful day we should go checkout the
beach. We walked to the metro and then
had about a 20 minute ride to the beach. On the way we passed by the famous Torres de Serranos towers. I’m not sure of their significance but our
hostel told us we should check it out!
We were really hoping to be able to layout on the beach
because our friends that went the weekend before did, but it was a little too
cold. In Spain no one wears shorts or
flip flops. Eric and I got a lot of
strange looks on our way to the beach for wearing them. When we got there the first thing we saw was
this amazing sand castle being built!
They were all throughout the beach, I don’t know if I’ve ever actually
seen one in person like it!
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| This was another one further down the beach |
We tried to sit on the beach but it was soooo windy. I had to throw on my yoga pants and
sweatshirt and we only lasted about 10 minutes.
After we gave up we walked along the
shops and restaurants on the beach street.
We went into a few that had some neat stuff but nothing really
worth buying. Afterwards, we made our way back
to the hostel to shower and get ready for the night. In Spain they don’t eat dinner until around
10 pm at the earliest. Since we had such
an early lunch (around 11:30) we were pretty hungry by 8:00. The only problem is that most places close
during the early evening and reopen around 10:00. Everyone is always out and about though. We started to walk around and look at all of
the fallas some more and found some fun music playing outside of a bar so we
stopped to listen for a little while.
It was still early but soon enough we were so hungry that when
an open restaurants owner convinced us to look at his menu we were what we like
to call “lured into the tourist trap” and decided to eat there. Worst decision ever. The meal came with an appetizer, entrée,
bread, and dessert. Eric ordered a beer
to start and I ordered red wine. The
woman barely spoke any English so she must not have understood, although I did say vino rojo (red wine in Spanish)... and she brought
me a pink wine that tasted worse than Sunset Blush Franzia. We both ordered salads to start, which were
good, but its hard to mess up a chef salad.
Anyways, I figure we’re in Valencia so I should get seafood. I ordered salmon and Eric ordered paella
again. The salmon still had a million
bones in it and was wayyyy overcooked.
Sure made me miss the way mom does it… for dessert the choices were
“pudding, American cheesecake, and flan.”
Eric asked the woman what flavor the pudding was and she said “its
pudding!” … okay that rules that one out. Flan rules itself out (gross). So we decided on the cheesecake. What we were served was not cheesecake. Some sort of frozen spongy cake with a cheesy
mixture in the middle… I probably took two bites. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before
but a funny thing about Europe is that they only play American music for the
most part, so they not only don’t know what any of the songs mean, they don’t
know what kind of mood they’re setting with the music. I can’t for the life of me remember the exact
songs that were played but it was such a wide range of genres Eric and I
couldn’t help but laugh at our experience at this restaurant. I think the song we left on was the final countdown so we walked out to the woman at the counter yelling after us "It's the finaaaal countdoooown!" We needed something tasty when we headed for the churro stand and got a Churro
filled with chocolate to share. There was a
churro booth on every street so we had to give in to the temptation and boyyy
was it delicious. It definitely made up for the
less than satisfactory meal. We had been having such great meals we were bound to have a bad one, right?
Afterwards we had a few hours to walk around until midnight
when a firework show with lights was set to happen for Las Fallas. Our hostel had told us to go to a specific neighborhood that was well lit up at night but it was really hard to find it so we
ended up wandering towards the neighborhood in a not so direct route…. Not to mention I kept
getting off track by wanting to walk down every street where I saw a falla in the
distance. It was amazing to
me how it was so late yet there were still so
many young kids running around throwing firecrackers. It also seemed like it was daytime that’s how
lively and lit up the city was at night.
At around 11:00 we wound up on this long street with bands
playing and all of these vendors lined up selling various odds and ends. I couldn’t believe how crowded and bustling
it was so late at night! This city never sleeps! I ended up buying a scarf along the way it
was so pretty I couldn’t help myself.
By the time we reached the neighborhood where all of the
lights were supposed to be it was getting closer to the start of the fireworkds and we needed to be at the
bridge to watch them, so we
didn’t even end up seeing the really pretty lights, but the whole city was so
lit we weren’t even quite sure what we were looking for. On our way to the fireworks we passed the bull
fighting arena and there was a show going on! I couldn’t believe it and got
really excited and wanted to go…. I mean we can see fireworks at home but how
many places can you see a bull fight!?
It’s illegal in most parts of Spain.
Anyways, we went up to the ticket booth but apparently because it’s Las
Fallas they were having a spectaculo where they hypnotize the bulls instead of
an actual bull fight…. That didn’t sound as cool so we continued on our way to
the fireworks.
Poor Eric was so tired of walking and just wanted to be there but they were still kinda far away…. We’d been walking for hours at this point. I’ve gotten used to it traveling every
weekend so now I can walk for hours... and I’m the kind of person
where with every new falla I saw I just got more energy off of it because I
thought they were just the coolest things ever, so I wasn’t really feeling my
tired feet—or rather I’ve just trained myself to ignore it. We finally made it JUST in time and even
squeezed our way onto the bridge in a pretty good spot. I think it’s easy to squeeze in when
ther are only two of you. Unfortunately
it was still so crowded that we couldn’t sit and watch them, everyone was
standing and watching, but it was still a spectacular fireworks display
nonetheless. I’d say if its not the best
I’ve ever seen its definitely way up there.
The fireworks lasted for about 10 or 15 minutes and then we
made our way back to the hostel. We were
kinda far away and Eric was so done with walking I have to thank him for
putting up with me still wanting a picture of every falla we passed…. because I know for a fact no
one else would have :) but we still made it home before 1:00. It was crazy how busy everything was even at
that hour. We passed by the street with
all the vendors on the way home and it was still going strong. I just loved looking at the fallas... they look great at night because
they’re all lit up and the sun isn’t there to obscure your vision.
We finally made it back to the hostel where we were staying
in a 6 person room. There was another
couple from Australia that was just embarking on an 8 month backpacking trip
throughout Europe, the US, and Canada—they will truly have seen the world by
the time they get back to Australia. I
was kind of embarrassed that my bag for just a week was twice the size of their
bags for 8 months….but I could never be a backpacker for that very reason, I’m
the worst at packing lightly. The other
two people in the room didn’t come in until very late so I’m not quite sure what
their story was. The city was still
alive when we turned out the lights—we fell asleep to marching bands and
firecrackers and woke up to them again the next morning. We slept in a little and woke up around 10:00
to explore for our last few hours until we had to get to the airport for our
flight back to Milan. We had a map of
the suggested best fallas and with my personal gps navigator Eric we made a
plan to see a good majority of the top 10 fallas before heading back to the
hostel to get our things and go to the airport.
Our first stop was the falla that they proposed would be #1…. It
outshined all of the other fallas we had seen and would see by a
landslide. It was absolutely
unbelievable and SOOO BIG. The details that go into the fallas are just remarkable,
it must take forever to build them! I
wonder how many people work on them…. Is it just one person or a whole
group?
We spent the rest of the day walking around and seeing the
other top fallas. There are so many that
I think it would take a straight week just to make sure you’d seen most of
them, it’s probably impossible to see every single one.
The whole day everywhere we went there were people playing
music and dancing, this one group in particular was quite entertaining.
One of my favorite fallas had a pirate theme. It was definitely one of the best ones we
saw, I wish I had a way of knowing which ones were actually ranked the best!
It was getting close to time so we decided to head back to
the hostel. We realized it was going on
2:00 so we would have to go around the main square instead of through it due to
the mascletas. We were 4 or 5 blocks
behind where it was set to occur and started walking through the crowds of
people and then out of no where we just couldn’t move anymore. At first we weren’t sure what the crowd was
about because we were so far away but these people were gathering for the 2:00
mascletas from five blocks away because they couldn’t get into the square! We couldn’t believe it…
we kept trying to push through with a few other people moving in front of us
but eventually there were just a bunch of Spaniards screaming at us in Spanish
that we couldn’t move or get by and refusing to let us pass so we had to
wait. This threw a loop in our plans
and as soon as it was over we were basically sprinting back to the hostel but
it all worked out because we ended up getting to the airport with PLENTY of
time to spare. It was quite a challenge
getting through the city with our bags because the metro to take us to the
airport was about a 20 minute walk from our hostel.
When we got to the
airport we waited around and then when it was time to board they told us it was
an hour delay.
Ryan Air prides itself on being on time and having the best
record of all of the airlines for always being on time… every time I’ve flown
with them at the end of the trip everyone claps and they announce
“congratulations you’ve just flown on another successful Ryan Air journey with
99% of on time flights this year” or something along those lines. So OF COURSE when we need to be on time,
that’s impossible.
We ended up leaving about an hour and half after our
scheduled departure, which made me worried about getting from Milan to
Lugano. From the airport in Milan you
have to take an hour long bus to the main train station. The buses leave every 20-30 minutes so I was
nervous we would get there right after a bus had left and have to wait even
longer. Again, we were supposed to have about 2 hours in the train station to
get dinner and wait for our train home but because of the delayed flight we no
longer had that option. Luckily we
caught the bus to the train station about 5 minutes before it was going to
leave and we were on our way. When we arrived at the train station we had less than 10 minutes to buy Eric’s ticket and
get on the last train headed towards Lugano that night… we were literally running from the
bus to the platform—at least Eric got to experience this part of traveling by
train right? Running to the next platform, it’s a personal favorite of mine…. Anyways, we run up to a ticket machine and it
tells me “this ticket is not saleable” …. I didn’t know what to do but I saw a
different type of machine and decided to give that one a try. This one said I could buy an urban train
ticket for 1.50 euros. The ticket for Eric on the way to Milan was about 15
Francs so I knew this couldn’t be right but there were no other options! We were running out of time so we bought that
ticket and hoped for the best. I’ll
never know if it was right or not because luckily for us they didn’t check
tickets on that entire ride. I’ve only
had that happen once or twice but someone was looking out for us because I
had a gut feeling we didn’t have the right ticket. We got home a little after midnight and
checked Eric into the Montarina and went to sleep, sad that he was leaving at
10:30 the next morning to go home.
When we
woke up it was snowing a little bit but nothing too bad so we weren’t
worried. When got to the Lugano airport
we looked up at the departures screen and read: 10:30 am- Zurich CANCELLED. I could not believe it. I have not had any
problems traveling since I got here and Eric comes and all of these things
happen!! I just could not believe it! We had to wait in line for about an hour
for the lady to try and find him another flight but all the flights out that
day were completely booked! She ended up
putting him on a flight the next morning at 9:05 from Zurich. Apparently the Lugano airport is extremely
difficult to land in so when there is any issue with the weather all hell
breaks loose. This is one detail I would
have liked to have known before Eric bought his tickets…. because him getting
into and out of Lugano was the main reason for the problems with our
traveling. Anyways, she suggested he
take the train to Zurich instead because the weather wasn’t supposed to clear
up and he wouldn’t get out of Lugano the next morning either. The airport payed for his meals, train, and
hotel expenses so that was one perk that came from the whole situation. Not gonna lie I was happy to get an extra day
with him but I know he was bummed about the inconvenience and having to miss
class.
Then we were off again. We took a train around 2:15 but went back to
the Montarina first so he could email his teachers about class and I could get
some things together to go to Zurich for the night. We grabbed lunch in Lugano before leaving
since we hadn’t really eaten since lunch the day before (the delayed
flight kept us from having dinner and I didn’t have any food at the Montarina). I was happy Eric got to take the train to
Zurich though because it is such a pretty ride. All along the way there a mountains, pretty gaps, a couple beautiful lake views, it is probably my favorite route to take by train.
It’s crazy you go under a mountain and when you go in its
snowing and you come out and the weather is completely different on the other
side. When we arrived in Zurich he
checked into his flights for the next day, checked his bag, and got the hotel
information and food vouchers and we were on our way again.
The hotel was not so bad, it reminded me of a Hampton
inn. Eric got a free dinner and since it
was buffet style he just filled a giant plate of pasta up and brought it to the
room for us to share. We spent the
rest of the night relaxing and remembering highlights of the week and fell
asleep early. It was nice to sleep in a
hotel bed instead of a hostel…. It had been a while for me since we stay in the
hostel part of the Montarina so I haven’t been in a normal bed since I got
here. We got up early so he’d have
plenty of time to get through security.
I was sad to say goodbye, the week had gone by way too fast but it
certainly was amazing, I already can’t wait to go back to Spain again in the future!
