No, we didn't make a side trip to the Caribbean! I misspelled Granada in my last blog, so the map shows us traveling to the island of Grenada, and I can't seem to able to correct it.
Overnight we sailed along the south coast of Spain and by morning we were sailing northeast up the coast towards Valencia. We docked at 1:00 pm. It was somewhat windy, cool (low 20s) and partly sunny.
Right after docking we took a 10 minute cab ride to the so called City of Arts and Sciences. This is a complex of modern buildings (see pic) designed by the world famous Spanish architect-engineer, Santiago Calatrava. We spent more than an hour walking the grounds and admiring the huge reflecting pools, a semi-enclosed garden with rows of Palm trees, a series of sculptures in the shape of candies representing various nations, and the very unique architecture of the opera house, museum, planetarium, and aquarium buildings.
We then took another short cab ride to the "Old City" where we promptly spotted a Starbucks and asked the cabbie to drop us off there. The free wifi enabled Sherry and me to retrieve our e-mail, I posted my latest blog, and Evelyn had her usual Americano.
We then did a walking tour of some of the sights recommended in the literature provided on the ship, including a bell tower built in the 1300s, a church, and the former silk market (a beautiful example of Gothic architecture). Apparently Rick Steves doesn't find Valencia worthy of a visit, as he doesn't even mention it in his guide book, but we found it to the contrary. We continued to wander through several plazas and narrow pedestrian only streets, with numerous sidewalk cafes where the locals were enjoying their Sunday afternoon tapas and wine/beer. We too stopped for some drinks before finding a cab to take us back to the ship.
For some inexplicable reason there were only the four of us for dinner at our table for eight, but we nevertheless enjoyed a nice dinner with different (and more efficient) servers than the previous night. After dinner we watched sail away from the panoramic Viking Crown lounge (too cold to be out on the decks). There was lots of activity on the ship until late at night as tomorrow is a sea day. I stayed up for some "seventies music" while Ron, Evelyn and Sherry turned in earlier.