Weather: 29º C and sunny (not a cloud in the sky)

Started the morning off with a reasonably long walk to the Science and Arts buildings. These were a pleasant change from the Old Towns that we have been visiting for most of this trip to date. These buildings are the largest single investments that Valencia has undertaken to date.

The buildings are an Hemispheric building resembling a giant eye, a Science building resembling the skeleton of a whale, an Oceanographic building built in the shape of a water lily, a Performing Arts Centre, a suspension bridge, a covered plaza and a garden of indigenous plants of Valencia.

We walked through the garden area and the plaza but did not go into any of the buildings. We thought we might have gone into the science building but it appears to be set up as a very interactive building and there was not much English on display.

From there we caught the bus up to the Museum of Fine Arts, rated the second best in Spain after the Prado. As we approached the museum we saw a very nice area to have lunch. No English spoken out here and hard to work out parts of the menu so we just winged it. The restaurant must have used poncey words (none of them were in our Spanish to English dictionary) however as with such restaurants we had a really nice meal consisting of a salad (tuna, lettuce, 3 types of olives, 2 types of tomatoes, 2 types of onions, caper berries, artichokes, radishes, carrots, eggs and probably something else), some tempura vegetables (we knew what this one would be) and cuttle fish with noodles and greens. We could have finished after the salad however the other 2 dishes were not too large so we were comfortably sated. Of course there was also some beer. Anne did not have Sangria here as it only came in a 1 litre jug so had a beer instead (not many of you have seen that). Should Bruce have sacrificed the beer and gone for the jug of Sangria?

Lunch came with its own entertainment. We were along side the park that replaced the river (see last blog) and the police were there making up their quotas. They had all the cars along one side of the road towed away and all the cars parked in the middle of the road towed away. There is a legal parking area in the middle of the road but something changed (time of day or whatever) and it became illegal for all of them. Apart from watching some people plead (and/or pay there way) to avoid a towage it was interesting watching the tow trucks then tow some cars into parking spaces that were apparently legal. Hey, who are we to comment? (who does that sound like J&T?)

Anyway, back to the days events. Eventually got to the Museum of Fine Arts by walking through the Royal Gardens. The gardens date back hundreds of years but unfortunately the Royal Palace that once stood there was destroyed during the Spanish War of Independence. The hop-on/hop-off bus commentary mentioned that many “declarations” were made in the gardens. So Anne and Bruce made some declarations during their walk! – love interpretations from one language to another.The museum was free. It was paintings mainly by Spanish artists, from the 15th century to the 20th century. There were also some sculptures and furniture pieces. Bruce avoided the rooms with Madonna and Baby and luckily there were not too many of them. It was interesting to see the influences that some of the more famous non Spanish artists had on the Spanish artists – some of the outcomes were very obvious until the local artist had developed their own style. We left at closing time (7pm) and headed back to the old town by bus, did some shopping at the Supermercado for a light dinner, skipped the ice cream shop (they are really expensive @ €2.20 for one scoop) and headed to the apartment.

The next town, Cuenca, will be a challenge for us – watch this space.

PS to David and Lesley: We are up-to-date with the blog. Miss our late night wine evenings though.