Weekend diary, part 2

Saturday, 24 November (continued)
So to get to the big, long park, we first had to walk down a big, wide street. But this big, wide street was super-groovy, cos it had a big, wide walkway running down the middle of it -- kind of like a mini-park in its own right. People were out walking their dogs, couples were canoodling by their cars, and the occasional tramp was sitting on a bench with his shopping cart of worldly possessions next to him.

We walked past a cool tree, which looked like it was straight out of Pan's Labyrinth, too. Here's some video of this bit of the walk, including the tree and a sneak peek at the big park below us at the end of the clip.



So then we climbed down some steps into the park, and it was coooooool, like I said yesterday. And we walked and walked. We wanted to walk to the City of Arts & Sciences designed by Santiago Calatrava. We didn't realize how far it was. It looked quite near on the map!

But eventually we spotted a bit of the famous architecture, rising up from the horizon, and this spurred us on. We had flown in over the complex, and it looked amazing from the air. We simply had to go there. We walked and walked some more.

Finally we hit a fence. We could see where we wanted to be on the other side, but there was no direct route. So we followed the fence around, hoping it would eventually lead us to an entrance of sorts. And it did. But this was our first real sense of how much building work is still ongoing in Valencia. It is Spain's third-largest city, and yet it is still relatively undiscovered (save for the America's Cup being held there earlier this year). As a result of this newfound interest in the city, it seems there is a push to make it as tourist friendly as possible as quickly as possible.

Once outside the Ciutat, we sat a while and took some photos, then walked around the complex a little, down as far as the Oceanogràfic, which is an enooooormous aquarium type thing. We wanted to see how much it cost to get in and what the opening hours were for the Sunday, which we did.

But we had walked a long way from the hotel, and we knew we had to get back eventually. First, though, Red was keen to make our way to the Shop of the America's Cup, down in the port, in the hopes of buying a little something for her mum. So, off we set, following our trusty map. We came out from the Oceanogràfic and chucked a left. It looked a bit ... undeveloped ... but that's all good. We walked past some tourists on a corner who looked lost. But we had our map and we rounded the corner, only to find there was nowhere to go.

We doubled back and asked the tourists if they were looking for the port, too. They were. The six of us were now on a combined mission...