In preparing for our European adventure, we put one city on and took them off the list several times – unsure if we should visit or not. It is Spain’s 3rd largest city and not one of Rick Steve’s Best of Europe. We did, however, enjoy Samantha Brown’s episode describing the amazing aquarium and science museum and the fantastic paella to be had there, so we headed to Valencia after visiting Barcelona. We stayed in a really great, modern studio apartment just outside the city center but accessible to everything via bus. We took two days exploring the city and checking out the sites and then headed for our big day at the museum.
The aquarium was really well done and basically deserted when we went so we had plenty of time to check out the animals. We marveled at a fish we had never seen before swearing it looked like it was half-eaten and missing parts but really cool in that – I can’t look away from it’s grotesque but really intriguing body – kind of ways.
We saw some really cool exhibits and liked the way they did the tunnels overhead – the jellyfish – and the dolphin show.
Next, we were off to the science museum with high expectations after the really pretty well-done and very modern aquarium. We were definitely not disappointed by the architecture or enormous size of the facility.
It was definitely spacious and perhaps, maybe even a bit too large because it didn’t seem like they really had a handle on the exhibits. There were a few hands-on, interactive ones that would work especially well for kids. We couldn’t help cracking up though over the largest exhibit of all – the Marvel Comics one. It was cool but basically a big advertisement for the comics and many of the displays were broken. Bummer – decent effort but maybe a little more in the delivery! Unfortunately we didn’t even make it to the ono paella – we were too excited by our in-house kitchen and the prospect of cooking our own food to eat out. The paella had to wait.
