Day 43: Valencia Day 2

April 1, 2025

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Our main objective today was to go down to the port to make sure we could find the ferry, for our sailing to Mallorca tomorrow evening. In principle going to the ferry is a simple matter of cycling to the bottom of the Turia park, using its excellent cycleways, and then doing a few wiggles to reach the port. But we know that with a ferry to catch, it would never be that simple.

We set off, and as you can see from the photo below, the way is dead flat and dead easy.

We were looking for the Monk Parakeet, but only spotted pigeons, and one bird that looked slightly unique:

This is a Eurasian Blackbird, a species we see all over. But this is a female and so doesn't look like the jet black we usually recognize.

And a Serin:

Aside from the Parakeet, I was interested this time in getting a photo of the "Gulliver" play structure in the middle of the park and down near the the City of Arts and Sciences. It's not easy to make out from ground level that this is a huge reclining statue, cleverly incorporating slides. So I climbed up on the nearby bridge for a better view.

On the Kingdom of Valencia Bridge are two guards, one of which is this mythical gryphon.

It's still hard to make out the figure:

But once you recognize that this is a bearded head, it becomes easier.

Down by the City of Arts and Sciences there is a structure that encloses palm trees. For some reason we have never been close enough to see what it really is all about. I was hoping to remedy that this time, and just bookmarked the site as we passed by:

The whole City of Arts and Sciences is endlessly fascinating. Today we passed a strange statue, before arriving in front of the iconic blue Agora building.

Beside the Agora is the Oceanografic, and aquarium that we have visited twice before. Aside from its wealth of amazing marine displays, it includes a "Living River" with many water birds that are free to come and go, plus a large aviary, with even more water birds. Because we had decided that visiting three times would be excessive, I took once last sad photo of the entrance:

We proceeded then into the port area. As expected, it was big and complicated and really did merit a trial run.

Not too easy to find your ferry dock in here. There were lots of roundabouts and big trucks zooming around as well.

Because we had tracked our way in, it was easier (but not easy) to follow the breadcrumbs back out. We are glad we did this trial run. For tomorrow we can use today's tracks, or maybe try a clean new one for approximately the same route.

We passed back by the Oceanografic, and realized that we like it so much, we had better give it another go. It is, after all, Europe's largest aquarium. There is a high and low range of prices, depending on the calendar, and a discount for seniors. We ended up paying 28 euros each. The quality and number of the displays here are such that we would have paid twice that amount without blinking.

Like other "zoos", this one not only allows you to see the creatures on display, but it creates an environment of plants and walkways that make for a very pleasant outing. The San Diego Zoo is also much like that.

There is lots of help for identifying birds and the other creatures that are here.

eBird hates the Oceanografic, and warns users not to report "captive" birds from there. But in fact, most of the birds are endemic to the region, and free to leave if they want. The notice shown below refers to birds "visiting" the living lake, and mentions that some can only be seen at certain times of the year. Of the 25 species that we photographed today, 5 were genuinely exotic. We put those in a special eBird checklist, and actually hid all our observations from eBird's scientific functions. But we joyfully are posting our photos here. Lots are from closer range than usual, and look great, we think.

Some of the most photogenic birds are the Roseate Spoonbills, the Scarlet Ibis, and the Squacco Heron. Let's have a look at those:

And then there is the Striated Heron:

Another favourite is the Red Crested Pochard, with its seemingly oversized head:

The lady Red Crested Pochards are much more discreet:

Of course, there are always the Flamingos:

There were lots of other species as well, like these:

Demoiselle Cranes (these used to exist in Spain but are now extinct here)

Pied Avocet - just got out of the shower?

The Cattle Egrets in our "fashion shots" of them above look very elegant, but of course they can also get down in the mud with the cattle. In fact, at the seating for the snack bar here, they were behaving much like pigeons.

The people seem horrified to encounter an actual wild bird.

Although we have been very forward in our claims to have legitimately seen all sorts of birds while here, we are stopping short with Penguins!:

Although we focused on birds, we did got around to most of the other displays and saw other sorts of creatures, like these:

These tortoises with the frilly shells got very frisky, but our privacy policy prevents publishing their antics!

There were an inordinate number of tanks with Jellyfish.

We got tired out before we had even cruised by all of the displays. The Oceanografic has 17 major display areas/buildings. I was impressed by the apparent good health of all the life forms they are keeping, the clarity of the water, the well groomed gardens and plants. And yet we scarcely saw any employees. In the background there must be huge amounts of plumbing, food being prepared for the sharks and whatnot, chemical labs and treatment, even loading docks for food coming to the 8 on site restaurants. But we saw none of that at all. Also unseen were what must be platoons of biologists, people who really know what all this stuff is. People involved with sourcing new specimens, with breeding programs, and so forth. All invisible, - amazing.

OK, we did see this guy, scrubbing a tank:

Tomorrow, it's a walk in Old Valencia and to the Market, before we use our newfound knowledge to cycle to the ferry. And then .. Mallorca!

Today's ride: 27 km (17 miles)
Total: 1,108 km (688 miles)

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