Valencia

The next morning, September 4th, we got on the train to Valencia with no problems and arrived around 4pm. Valencia is much smaller than Paris and Barcelona and our hostel was downtown and very close to the train so we quickly found it and got unpacked. The whole trip so far we had been in our own room but here we were staying in a room with 12 other people, all packed in a room with six sets of bunkbeds. We actually got good beds all the way in the back of the room, it was just different having to share a room with so many people we didn't know. After settling in we quickly left again to see what we came to see in Valencia, la Ciudad de las Artes i de las Ciencias (the City of Arts and Sciences). It is a huge complex designed by Santiago Calatrava that has an art museum (pictured above to the left, I think it looks like a huge spaceship), an IMAX theater, a science museum, and an aquarium. The whole complex is like a big park and you can walk around for free so we walked around for a bit and then decided to buy tickets for the science museum (to the right) since we had already been to several art museums and also to an IMAX museum. The science museum was cool inside and we spent the afternoon wandering around. That night we didn't want to spend a lot of money on food so we grabbed something quick and then just sat in the plaza right near our hostel before going to sleep.

The next day, September 5th, we woke up to go see the movie The Alps at the IMAX theater called L'Hemispheric, the building shaped like a giant eyeball (above to the left). I had never seen an IMAX movie before and they gave us headsets so we could here it in English. The movie was about John Harlin whose father had died climbing the north face of the Eiger in Switzerland and it followed him as he attempted and succeeded in climbing it himself. I really liked the movie and it was cool to watch the scenery on such a large screen. We came out and then walked through another part of the complex called the L'Umbracle (pictured to the right) which is pretty much a short walk through a garden covered in a repeating white arched structure. We then had to leave to catch our last train to Madrid but I was really glad we made this stop in Valencia to see the City of Arts and Sciences.