Day 82: Valencia: Oceanografic

October 30, 2024

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We of course knew that the weather was severe around Valencia yesterday, as we pushed the bikes through flooded areas and could not ride, because of gale force winds. But this is kind of par for the course for us, and we did not think too much about it, until our phone lit up and screeched "breep, breep, breep". It as a message from the President of Spain, or someone impressive like that.

13:43 70 Presidential alert: Civil Protection Alert. Due to the heavy rains and as a preventive measure today, Wednesday, any type of road travel in the province of Valencia should be avoided. Stay tuned for future notices through this channel and official sources, ...and it goes on.

But the gravity of the situation did not sink in until messages began arriving from friends, telling what what being covered on the news. The news had stuff like this:

These were things that we did not experience directly. For us it was mainly the wind. This had tried to blow us over on the road and to force open the window in our hotel room. But as of this morning, it had totally died.

We have been returning to the NH Centre hotel each time in Valencia, without checking out the competition. The rooms are nice, and price a little high. But they sold us the first time around with the ten jammer breakfast, and we have been unwilling to gamble on anyone else since.n Never underestimate the power of breakfast, at least where Grampies are concerned!

We had no particular reason to start breakfast extra early this morning, but Dodie was still raring to go. Her instinct was good, because we found the breakfast room stuffed with Americans. They were part of a group, that the breakfast staff had a hard time believing we were not also part of. Like a flock of Cattle Egrets, they were cleaning out some of the food stations, as well as occupying most of the tables.

Maybe that's why I did not feel quite as impressed by the breakfast spread as I had in past visits. But somehow the number of kinds of cheese, or bread, or cake was not impressing me this time. Maybe I'm getting jaded and need to be shoved back into the Holiday Inn in Vancouver for retraining!

With the sun shining and the wind gone, we once again thought our plan for a wonderful day was going to go through. That plan was to first get on the Metro, at the Turia station, and to zip over to our bike storage spot, where we had arranged to meet Pedro the manager to set things up for storing the bikes this time around. We are experts about the metro now, and once in the Turia station we would be at our destination in good time. Only thing, Turia was barricaded. We and others looked at this in disbelief, but there was nothing we could do.

I had the idea of taking a taxi, something we usually resist. We did not spot any taxis in the street, so I stopped into a shop and asked the man to call a taxi for us. He tried, but I think the taxi companies were not answering. So we went to a classic Grampie fall back plan - start walking.

Turia Metro station is closed, without explanation.

Valencia, as we have mentioned, is a big city, and its old town, though large, is just a small part of it. Here we were walking far from any usual tourist haunts, and it's quite a boring scene.

It's a boring, and seemingly endless scene.

Ok wait, here is St Jose de la Montana church. It's something to notice, but we know nothing about it.

Here is something else to notice - a tree torn up by yesterday's wind. It took out a postal box!

The blown down tree is less impressive when you see that it's root system was not in good shape.

It was a 7 km slog to the bike storage. Fortunately we had started out too early (for the Metro plan), and also we had figured out how to make our British phone dial a spanish number (not +34 prefix, for some reason, but only 0034 will work). With that we could let Pedro know we would be a bit late.

Pedro understood our problem with the metro, because it turns out his wife is a metro train driver. He told us that yesterday the drivers had to switch off their trains and evacuate, phoning their parents (as he said) to get picked up and rescued.

With our bike locker nailed down (and paid for, for up to four coming months) we asked Pedro to call us a taxi, for our next step, the wonderful Oceanografic - combined aquarium and bird park. But Pedro also had no luck. So, we started walking.

Fortunately not too far along the walk that I managed to flag down a cab. Watching the streets go by, I was really glad. Another 7 km would have really done us in.

We were a little surprised by the €76 ticket cost for the two of us. But when Dodie pointed out our extreme age, it became €55. That still felt steep, but Oceanografic is totally worth it!

Oceanografic is part of the futuristic City of Arts and Sciences complex near the ocean end of the Turia park. While the other buildings in the group are each unique and stunning in their design, Oceanografic is more either underground or using small structures scattered around. The photo below is taken from Oceanografic, and does include its aviary dome, but the dramatic blue building is actually the "Agora", a kind of convention center.

The Oceanografic as its name implies sees itself mainly as an aquarium, while we see it as a place for dozens of exotic (to us) local birds. That aquarium fixation has them running us through all sorts of marine exhibits when we first enter, most notably a lot of different jellyfish. I dutifully snap pictures of these (which don't work all that well), while waiting to be released to go see the Spoonbills and Flamingos! Similarly, Dodie with poor night vision, staggers about the darkened jellyfish areas, also basically waiting for some daylight.

Ok, we are out, let's go see some birds!

Now these are rather interesting - very baby octopus!

24247 Northern Pintail (not native to Spain?)

I was still feeling tired from the walk to the bike storage, and the first part of going around the birds, in quite strong sun. But as the afternoon progressed the sun became reasonable, and it was very enjoyable strolling among the displays. We did need some calories to keep going, and I lined up to buy some gelato. I made the mistake of getting two scoops each, in cones, and despite what I said about the sun moderating, these began to melt really fast. This put us into a search for a washroom, to unsticky ourselves. Strangely even after finding this, we still felt sticky.

We had a shot at using the bus for getting home. The #95 was the one for us, leaving from just outside the Oceanografic. The cost was €1.50 each, and the driver took cash. Most of the riders had some sort of multi ride card, though. The bus was very crowded for most of its run. Google Maps showed us how the #95 route would bring us home to the hotel, and it was very useful and comforting to track our progress as a moving blue dot along the way. That way there was no question about when to push our way to the door, to exit the crowded bus.

A quick walk from where the bus left us off, and we were home at the NH Center! We had completed the 23 km circuit of town quite handily after all.

Feeling, I guess, that we have not seen enough local birds, we are moving tomorrow to the Albufera lake and wetlands south of town. This may not work out, because of the flooding, and both Scott and Rachael and us failed to see much there in the past because of rough conditions. But we are undeterred. It will be one more adventure!

Today's ride: 23 km (14 miles)
Total: 4,066 km (2,525 miles)

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Bill ShaneyfeltGood to know you are safe from the floods!
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1 month ago

Karen PoretTo Bill ShaneyfeltAgreed, Bill..
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1 month ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Bill ShaneyfeltWe will, with luck, be able to get in and out of the Albufera safely. It is a low lying area and we are not sure what the recent rain may have done. Stay posted to find out.
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1 month ago