K & L's Travel Blog

We head out to see Valencia Cathedral and take a slow route on back alleys. When we get to the main square, there are emergent clusters of tour groups. I suspect cruise ships, but it might also be buses. At any rate, we are early enough to not feel that crowded at all. By the time we leave at 11:30 or so, people are lining up to come in, but the crowds are still largely focused on the Plaça Reina. 

We take a stop in a café to have coffee and try the local pastry, fartons. They are roughly the shape of a straight cruller with texture of a French pastry. We take time to finally carry out our accumulated bottles and then go shopping at El Cortes Ingles. 

We take our goods back to the apartment and then go to bask. We hadn’t counted on the wind picking up, but still enjoyed the warm sun on the bridge of flowers before setting off for another garden, just adjacent to the Turia. 

The Jardin Real is lovely and on the site of a former palace and former zoo. There is a combination of lovely garden statuary and tacky repurposed zoo enclosures. We enjoy an aviary filled Australian birds where the native parrots fly over and mock their caged cousins. We watch ducks communing and swans having sex.

At home we have a lovely sunset. Kitty cooks lasagna. We listen to music and drink wine. Lovely day. In some ways, our lives are settling into patterns. In other ways it is still extraordinary to look up and see yourself surrounded by multicolored geraniums.