Spanish road-trip, part 2/4: Valencia

(Read Spanish road-trip part 1/2: Barcelona here!)

Valencia:

“City of Arts, Culture” and, we think, green!

To visit Valencia we stayed in a sea-side village 20Km away – Perellonet. Having a car allowed us to visit other places we wouldn’t normally check out, which is rather cool!

Valencia is a very pretty city. Horrible traffic (traffic lights every 200m!) and no parking (like many other cities in Spain). But apart from that it is really well taken care of.

Apparently, back in the day, a river used to cross the city from one end to the other. Due to regular floods, the people of the city diverted the river and now, the space that was once the river bank is occupied by a park that extends for about 14Km. You can go from one end of the city to the other pretty much by walking or cycling in this park. There are even municipal bikes available for rental all around but for those you need to have a city card. Alternatively, there are private rentals for about 2Euros/hour).

This place makes you wonder! All of this space right in the middle of the city is obviously expensive, valuable area, that in many other cities would have been sold or let to businesses and developments. But not in Valencia! They preferred to keep it green and healthy for the citizens and that is something we applaud!

Shehedbee sun-bathing in the park

The other thing that stands out in Valencia is the “City of Arts and Culture” which is a futuristic looking complex that includes an IMAX cinema, a museum of science, an auditorium for different events and an aquarium.

Mzima, enjoying a mud-bath!

We visited the museum and the IMAX – and guess what? In the IMAX session we watched a documentary called “Born to be Wild” that featured The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust which is an Elephant Orphanage that we had visited last year in Kenya. It was quite moving to see in the big screen the same people we had met in Kenya, that do such great work to preserve the wild life.

In the meantime, Ashray did an amazing Christmas surprise to me by making me the foster parent of Mzima, an elephant that is being taken care of by the team at Sheldrick’s, until he is ready to go back into the wild by himself. If you would also like to foster or contribute to an elephant’s life, please visit this organization’s website: www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org

Next stop: Andalucia!

Read: Spanish road-trip part 3/4: Andalucia!

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