Not as much of a leisurely start this morning. This was our last day in Valencia and, with a train at just after 4pm, we wanted to make the most of it. We checked out of our hotel, leaving our luggage for later, and headed back towards La Ciutat de Les Arts e Les Ciencies. We had pre-booked tickets to Oceanografic (which claims to be the largest aquarium in Europe), and were glad we had when we arrived and saw the queues of people who hadn’t! We sailed through and set off around the museum.
More interesting architecture in the City of Arts and Sciences 
Glad we didn’t have to join this queue! 
Some of our favourite tanks were actually right at the beginning – a wide variety of beautiful jellyfish!
The rest of the first section was all Mediterranean species – we’ll be looking out for some of these when snorkelling in the South of France next week!
Outside again, there was a huge mesh dome, which housed many colourful birds. However, this was heaving, so we looked in from above before moving on. I won’t describe all of the areas, but the main fish tank with an impressively long tunnel under it was particularly wowing!
Exceedingly long legs for a little bird! 
We had decided to give the dolphin show a miss: after being told to arrive at least 30 minutes before (and it being about a 40 minute show), we just didn’t have time. However, as we walked past shortly after it had begun, they were still letting people in, so we clambered up to the very top of the seating and settled down to watch. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it (and still aren’t really), but it was very impressive, and I felt better to discover that they had bred recently (I don’t believe animals breed if they are unhappy in their captive surroundings).
Unfortunately, on leaving the show we ended up stuck behind everyone else who had been watching, producing massive queues for the next exhibit! We decided to skip it and moved to the shorter queue for the sharks! This was an amazingly big tank with some stunning sharks and another tunnel to walk through. We also enjoyed seeing the enormous rays, who liked to come right up to the side of the tank!
Cooling spray while queueing! 
Sword Fish 
Random person included in photo for scale! 
Shark selfie!
The final section was the Arctic. The belugas were lovely, but we didn’t linger for too long in here, as the tank for the walruses and the enclosure for the penguins were both far too small, in our opinions.
Before leaving, we headed for the 4D Cinema, which we had, again, prebooked. The showing was “Hurricane”, which combined 5 years of incredible footage (including brave – or crazy – pilots flying through and into the eye of the storm!) to create one film about a fictional hurricane. It really was mind-blowing and very clever. We did come out rather moist from all the “rain” that kept being sprayed at us!
The weather had become muggier and muggier (and more and more windy) as the day had gone on, so we had a slow walk back to the hotel, where we collected our luggage and jumped into a taxi to the train station. The station is an absolutely beautiful building, decorative and light and airy.
We had arrived with a good hour to spare, so we sat down for a cold drink, and for Tom to finish off the blog post from yesterday. After a while, I wandered off to check if our platform had been announced, only to discover that the train was delayed by an hour! So we passed some more time in the lovely little bar, sharing a tortilla sandwich and Tom completing the blog fully, before boarding our train and setting off for Barcelona.
The journey passed smoothly and pleasantly, with frequent views of rocky hills to our left and the sea to our right. It didn’t feel like the 4 hours that it took. The train was really spacious and comfortable, with (thankfully) powerful air conditioning!
We’re now settling into our hotel in Barcelona. We have learnt that the Spanish like very long pillows and to have weighing scales in their hotel bathrooms!
We completely fell in love with Valencia. It is the perfect balance of history and modernism, with a friendly and laid-back atmorsphere, and much to do (we only scratched the surface really). We suspect Barcelona will be very different, but are excited to sample its delights.
Tomorrow we will explore this new city via the medium of a bus tour!