Friday 25 September 2015

Weekend Trip To V a l e n c i a!

After a near enough spontaneous decision to make a trip to Valencia for the weekend, Esther and I managed to book our transport and accommodation within the space of an hour (maybe less!) after work one day last week. I mentioned in one of my previous posts that we wanted to venture out of Madrid because we felt a little bored and tired of doing the same thing every weekend, so we headed to V a l e n c i a for two nights and three days ^^...

Friday, 18th September 2015

We finished work at 2pm on friday, 18th so we had a few hours to kill before we left home. We attempted to nap for a short while as we knew it was going to be along journey to Valencia. Our mode of transport was BlaBlaCar - a 'trusted community for sharing your city-to-city car travels'. In other words, you hitch hike with a stranger who's driving to the place you want to go to...a decent way to ear some extra money! We purposely chose two female drivers with plenty of experience to share a car with just to be on the safe side! We took the bus to Moncloa and took the metro to Atocha station which was where we were meeting our driver. I must admit, I was really nervous whilst on our way there as I wasn't too keen on the idea to begin with but you don't know until you try, right? We found our driver waiting for us at the petrol station and there were two other women in the car too - a 30 year old lady with her mother! It was such a coincidence that the mother could speak a little bit of Cantonese so we were able to speak to her as well as some broken Spanish (Esther, not me). The car journey took 3.5 hours and we stopped just the once as the ladies wanted to grab a bite to eat and also to have a cigarette. I'm not one who enjoys sitting in a car for a really long time so the journey was a pain in the butt for me. I felt hot, tired and uncomfortable! But I knew I just needed to look forward to the weekend and be grateful that we were able to be driven to Valencia for less than half of what we we would have to pay to go by train. After a long 3.5 hours, we arrived shortly after 11pm and were dropped off in central Valencia. We then walked to our hostel, The River Hostel (it was about 15 minutes walk away). The hostel was noisy and alive as it was a Friday night...which was not a pleasant experience because I was so tired from being up early for work and all that travelling for so many hours. Our night consisted of a quick shower and a late night due to people choosing to shower at ridiculous hours (2:30AM) and to make things worse, our room was right next to the shower rooms T__T

Saturday, 19th September 2015

Esther and I woke up early to make the most of our two days in Valencia and we planned to visit one of their many city beaches to relax and sunbathe. For breakfast, we went to a nearby eating area called, 'Mercado Colón'. It consisted of lots of small tapas restaurants and downstairs had a few bigger cafés and restaurants. We chose these original-looking restaurant 'Ma-khin cafe' because it had pictures of nice breakfasts on the sign just outside its door. The café looked new and modern, its decor was cute. We decided to have very British breakfasts as we were both missing home comfort food! I ordered the Eggs Benedict and Esther had toast with ham, tomato purée and cheese. Oh and not forget, we both had ENGLISH BREAKFAST TEA! My first, I repeat...my FIRST cup of tea since I have been in Madrid T__T...my close friends and family know how much I love drinking tea so this was a huge deal for me ^^' it was so comforting to the tummy having this delicious food for breakfast and to be able to drink a lovely cup of tea! It was definitely a great start to a great day.





After we finished our breakast/brunch, we took the metro to the beach which wasn't too far away. Check out the cool metro tickets in Valencia! - 


We decided to head to one of Valencia's many city beaches to relax and sunbathe for most of the day... a well deserved break I'd like to think ^^. If you ever travel to Valencia, I would definitely recommend checking out their beaches! They're truly beautiful. The name of the beach we visited is called Paseo Maritime - Playa de la Malvarrosa. The weather was amazing - 28 degree heat, not a cloud in sight. Honestly, it was perfect for us who were prepared to do nothing but lounge around all day xD. Here are some pictures of the beach ^__^ 






What could possibly be better than sunbathing on the beach in 28 degree heat with an iced coffee in your hand?! The sea was ever so warm too. 

We managed to drag ourselves away from the beach after 4/5 hours of cooking in the sun to head back to our hostel to freshen up before dinner. Esther had found a popular Tapas restaurant on Google so we went ahead and made a reservation for half 7. We didn't really have lunch so you could imagine how hungry we were! The restaurant was a small traditional tapas restaurant which offered you seats inside and outside. We chose to sit inside because I get cold easily ^^'. 7:30pm is considered really early to have dinner in the Spanish culture so the restaurant was pretty empty when we arrived. A kind English speaking waiter explained the menu to us and recommended a set menu for two to us and we decided to go ahead with it! We've been meaning to try some good traditional Spanish food since we've been here and we were definitely presented with it! ^__^ every dish was appreciated and I must admit that it was delicious. Everything was homemade and the flavours were to die for. I would eat this type of food everyday if I could :) 









To burn off our huge dinner, we had a nice stroll back to the hostel whilst stopping by any building that looked pretty ^^.. Valencia was buzzing by the time we had finished dinner so the atmosphere was great! We walked by the bull ring and Valencia's train station. Oh and we also stopped for froyo (frozen yoghurt) @ llaollao again... can you guess who was desparate to have it for dessert? Yep...my dessert-loving roomie! ^^' 






Sunday, 20th September 2015

Our last day in beautiful Valencia! I actually woke up feeling very ill. My back was aching a lot and hurting, not a great sign. I think due to the lack of sleep I'd had during the week had finally caught up? Nevertheless, we still went for lunch in the sun and tried some cool infamous alcohol. We had lunch just outside the cathedral. There were lots of seats for people to grab some food and have beer. I had a seafood linguine (a dish I tend to have at Zizzi's back home, a lot!) it was really nice to sit back and enjoy some tasty food before we headed home to Madrid. 




Esther really wanted to try this infamous alcohol they have there in Valencia called Agua de Valencia and again, found a restaurant/bar that is known for it. The bar was just round the corner from where we had lunch which was convenient as I was not feeling well at all at this point. The bar was very quirky. The decor was very traditional and offered a strange yet exciting setting. The drink itself tasted very nice... it contained vodka and rum with orange (I think). I am not a huge fan of drinking alcohol but I must admit, this drink was ever so refreshing ^__^





It was such a shame that I was feeling so crap on our last day in Valencia...I felt so bad for Esther and felt like I ruined and wasted our day - I'm sorry roomie! Our car ride home to Madrid was at 4pm so we walked to the area which we were going to get picked up which was Plaza de Espanya. We sat in the sun for a while and decided to find toilet somewhere before getting in the car. We found a café round the corner (the only shop open) and we ended up eating! ^^' I had a really nice and cheap croissant and Esther had an ice cream with a watermelon slush(?) that did not taste nice what so ever!! False advertising!! We went home with a lady and a guy who was also using the BlaBlaCar service to go to Madrid. It was a long journey home but we were so tired that we managed to get some sleep...despite the driver blasting her rock music!! 

We arrived home around 9:30pm, showered and got into bed. I am really grateful that this weekend away happened. It allowed me to enjoy myself in the great weather and I couldn't have asked for better company. To be honest, I really needed this trip and I'm glad we made this spontaneous decision to go. I never normally go on trips out of the blue but maybe sometimes they are better than planned trips? I hope Esther and I (and Samra too!) can go on many more trips away and explore Spain together before the weather gets too cold for us to even want to leave our rooms! 

I apologize for the late post, I haven't been well the past week so I wanted to rest up and get better before I tell you all about my first weekend trip away. ^^ 

Please look forward to more posts! - again, thank you for reading. 

- Tiffany




Photo credit: TeenyTinyMui












No comments:

Post a Comment