What is Valencia famous for?
What springs to mind when you read the title? Valencia oranges perhaps?
Fun fact, yes there are plenty of oranges in this city. In fact, there are orange trees in the street. However, the Valencia orange is not native to the region. What the? Yes, indeed. Valencia oranges actually originated in California.
It is common to find freshly squeezed orange juice served at most restaurants in Spain and it is absolutely delish. We have been enjoying a glass each day with breakfast. We can even spot a fake OJ now!!! Nothing but fresh for the KamarudinS.
Sites of Valencia
So, Valencia is well known for its museums, theatres and architecture.
Valencia and the Turia River
A slight back-story… the Turia River that once ran through the middle of the city, flooded in October 1957.
Some areas of the city were under 5metres of water and when it receded the mud that was left behind took ages to remove.
In response the river was diverted south of Valencia, leaving behind a riverbed.
After much debate about what to do with the riverbed it was decided to create much of it as a park and sporting area.
Steve and I walked kilometres of the ramblas (dry river bed) when we were in Valencia. It’s great and well used by residents and tourists.
Anyhoo, the far end of the river bed was dedicated to science, art and oceanographic museums.
The architecturally designed buildings are massive and very impressive.
Old city segway tour and Oceanographic Valencia museum
After a Segway tour of the old city – which was a lot of fun – the next stop on our list during our 3-day visit was the Oceanographic Valencia museum.
After being impressed by the Singapore aquarium we were keen to see what Valencia had to offer considering it is in the top 10 aquariums on the planet.
The facility itself is massive and includes animals, birds and sea life from all corners of the world including crocodiles, turtles, penguins, manta rays, seals, sea lions, belugas, tropical and Mediterranean fish, butterfly’s, dolphins and sharks.
As ocean and marine-life lovers Steve and I love visiting beaches, oceans and aquariums around the world. However, we are very aware that certain species deserve to be free rather than be put on display. For this reason, we skipped the dolphin show and cried as we watched a stunningly beautiful 3-metre long beluga whale swimming in a circuit in a tank all too small. I swear he saw us, looked through us and all I could say was ‘I’m so sorry.’
The Oceanos exhibit with its schools of giant trevally, numerous manta rays, stingrays, banjo sharks, leopard sharks, reef sharks, hammerhead sharks and grey nurse sharks certainly was impressive and worthy of its top 10 rating.
We thought it was funny that nothing dangerous appeared in the Mediterraneo exhibit. Strange that none of the 47 species of sharks that live in the mediterranean featured here, hehehaha!
Science museum
Okay after the Oceanographic we just had to visit the science museum too because Steve is such a nerd.
Central market
We also visited the Central Market and again just wandered the streets finding cool stuff to look at – it’s turning into my favourite thing to do.
We also took a tram to the beach for a wander – the beach itself was massive, I mean 1km wide from road to water.
There are makeshift pathways down toward the water, needed because the sand gets rather hot.
We paddled our feet and decided it was still too cold to go in, so we had lunch overlooking the ocean instead😉
Notice the darker font Ma – especially for you xx
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