After a brief recovery in Barcelona, I arrived in Valencia tired, of course. I think the heat was sapping my energy, as I was hardly drinking and going to bed very early by local standards (late enough though). I had booked another highly rated hostel for Valencia, which turned out to have the best a/c yet, all throughout the hostel, and my room only had 4 beds, which were not bunk beds. It was also pitch black when the shutters were closed. The first morning I woke up to people getting up at…9:30am! It was a miracle! Other than the guy who arrived at 4:30am, presumably drunk, who couldn’t open the door or get his plug in the socket, I had slept pretty well. This, despite the fact that I was down an earplug, after having it fall from my top bunk in Barcelona, and not having the nerve to wake up the girl below me to look for it before checking out. A real loss.

Although the room was amenable to sleeping, to accomplish getting enough sleep, I did have to go against my best instincts of staying out to see all that was going on. Valencia, of course, was in the middle of some sort of festival. I wandered out the first night and stumbled upon a free concert in a beautiful plaza, which turned out to be a type of folk music, to which half the plaza immediately started dancing to. And every day there seemed to be a marching band and fireworks. But I was determined to sleep!

Valencia is a lovely city. It’s the third largest in the country, but has less than a million people. As I overheard one woman describe it, “it doesn’t feel like you’re in a city, it feels like you’re at the beach”. Perhaps that’s because it has numerous nice beaches, and much to my surprise, the water was warm! After needing a wetsuit while surfing in Portugal, I was very pleasantly surprised and spent much of one afternoon in the water.

My other time mainly consisted of biking around between free museums on Sunday, and sleeping in of course. I also tried the famous horchata. The bike lanes in Valencia are pretty impressive, and the tourist industry has taken notice, with a bike rental spot on every corner. I rented a really great city bike for two days for 10 euros. A bargain. Biking is also the best way to get to the beach.

Overall, I really enjoyed Valencia, and would definitely recommend it as an easy city with lots to do.