29th to 31st August

We've spent the last 3 days here in Valencia. On Friday we took the tram and metro to the old town. The highlight was a visit to the cathedral and the 207 steps to the top of the bell tower. On Saturday we went to La Lonja, the old silk exchange. This is a stunning world heritage site. We visited the Art Deco Market and stocked up on ham and trinkets. Next to be visited was the museum of modern art. The river that ran through the centre of the town was diverted back in the late 1950s and is now a stunning linear park. We walked some way along that before getting the metro back to the boat. Today we decided to walk to the futuristic collection of buildings known as the city of arts and sciences. Carefully following the map we ended up lost in the fences surrounding the old F1 track. The only way out was across a railway line. We retraced our steps and eventually reached our destination. We were faced with a collection of extraordinary buildings resembling a futuristic, if somewhat soulless, vision of a city of the future. The science museum was a marvel of architecture with rather mundane exhibits failing to fill the overwhelming space. We viewed the other buildings from the walkways and then took a taxi back to the marina. In the evenings we spent some time with Karen and Jonathan who are here on Farfelu. They were joined this evening by Ken who had travelled up by bus from where he had left Unleashed.