From Denia to Valencia in February

First thing on Monday morning we have a look at the weekly street market in Denia. Except that 9 a.m. is too first-thing around here, and most of the stallholders are still laying out their wares. Andrea finds a Spanish looking shirt.

We then drive to Valencia airport, stopping on the way at a convenient Mercadona where we buy some ready food and eat it in the designated area, thanks for thinking of this too, Mercadona! We leave the car as per the instructions near a man as unfriendly as his counterpart when we picked up the car was friendly. From there it’s easy to get into the centre of Valencia by underground. After lengthy research we buy a SUMA AB+ card which gives us 10 rides (which we can divide between the two of us) on the entire network for 10 euros (it’s half price until June) plus 1 euro for the physical card. There are machines but an actual person is available at the info/ticket office so we buy it there. It works contactless going in and out of the underground and mostly tells you how many rides you have left.

From The Avenida Cid stop on line 5 it’s a 15/20 minute walk to our apartment in the Patraix area. The apartment is convenient for pretty much nothing, not the bus, not the underground, not the centre. But it’s just been renovated and is perfectly clean, smart and new. We can leave our bags when we arrive because the cleaning lady is there and we go to have a coffee. It’s mild and sunnyish. Then we go to Mercadona for a little shopping. When we get back the cleaning lady has left, but the key code doesn’t work. I send a message to the usual mystery person on Whatsapp. It doesn’t work because checkin is from 16:00 and now it’s 15.55. Ah! Except that it doesn’t work even at 16:00. After more messages we get in. We get a bit organized and then go out to explore Valencia. It’s a 20 minute walk to the beginning of the centre and I’m not much impressed even when we reach the beginning of the centre. Buildings seem a bit grimy, there’s a lot of graffiti and none of it is artistic, modern buildings mixed in with older and more attractive ones.

But we get to Plaza del Ayuntamiento which is nice with some attractive palacios and start to relax a  little. We wander the streets and also have a look at Plaza de Toros and Estacion Nord and on the long walk back to the apartment go round the Rioja Roja apartment block and start to think that Valencia might grow on us.