Last Day

All too soon it was my last day in Valencia. Alix and I decided to see some sights and have lunch together so as to have a nice and productive last day. 

After having been recommended the Botanical Gardens by my brother and his girlfriend, we decided to stop there to have a look around. It was a beautiful day and walking was hard going in the blistering heat.

 On our way we passed some strange and interesting graffiti down an alley, I couldn't resist taking some photos.

Getting to the gardens took us through parts of Valencia I had never been before, which I very much enjoyed. One of my favourite parts was passing through this huge gate - the second one remaining from the old wall (you can see the first one in one of my earlier posts) however the gate itself wasn't the only thing cool about it. See the holes in the wall? Those are from cannon fire by Napoleon's army during Spain's War of Independence!

The actual gardens themselves were really nice, they cost 2.50 each which I thought was a bit overpriced (that's two cervezas right there!) but it was very pretty. The entrance especially was rather cool

 

It was very green and very quiet, no cars and very few people, just birdsong.

And lots of awesome cacti! 

There was also an area of fruit and vegetables, everything from rice to peanuts (with Alex's temporary disbelief that peanuts actually grew in the ground, hehe who knew!?) and also these pretty grape vines!

However my personal favourite was as we were wandering around a very old Spanish man came up to us and started excitedly leading us around to different herbs and pointing out what they were (all in Spanish of course) his favourite appeared to be some poppy plants which he repeatedly told us made opium and gesticulated a smoking pipe which he seemed to find hilarious. Good times! 

 Mercado Central was another stop I wanted to make. This huge central market is considered one of the oldest in Europe still running, although the building itself was fairly new - a modernist building from 1914. 

The huge market sold every food type you can think of, fresh fruit, vegetables, cheeses, meats, olives, fish and so on.

It was a very hot day so we also bought from the market some delicious iced and freshly made rasberry juice. Delicious. On our wanderings we also came across a garden we hadn't seen before so we decided to explore. Called the Garden of Hesperides, this set me off into a rant about Herakles although I assumed the name wasn't relevant. I was pleasantly surprised to see the statues within, which included Aphrodite (pictured below) and Herakles himself (although I couldn't get a good picture unfortunately) detailing his eleventh labour - to steal the golden apples of immortality from the Garden of Hesperides. I thought it was rather awesome, even if they did call him Hercules on the statue. I was rather happy I hadn't forgotten my Greek myths after all this time!  

 

View from the Garden of Hesperides 

We stopped for some much needed lunch, Patatas Bravas and beer, perfect on such a hot day.

Because it was my last night before my plane left early in the morning, Alix and I decided to go out one last night, even if I did have to get up at 5:45AM to catch my flight. It was a lovely night out, and even though I only ended up having an hour and a half sleep, it was worth it! I can't wait to visit Alix and Valencia again one day soon.