Europe

With a big day of driving today, we planned to be up early. But that didn’t happen! We managed to get downstairs to breakfast just after 10:00 am.

After breakfast, we went back up to the room to pack. We departed the hotel at about 12:15 pm.

Just before getting out of the city proper, we stopped at a petrol station to fill up the car. This may have been the most chaotic petrol station we had ever been to. It was a hive of activity for all sorts of things that seemed totally unrelated to getting petrol! Anyway, we managed to fill up and get on our way, still slightly confused about what was going on at the petrol station.

We drove the 500 kilometres from Granada to Valencia without stopping, and arrived in Valencia around 5:00 pm. To get to our hotel, the Palacio Vallier, we had to turn into a very narrow street whose signage made it clear that number plate recognition was in use to issue fines to unauthorised vehicles. So, we opted to bypass the street and do a big lap over the river and back again, while we tried to find another way in. We determined that there was no other way in, since the hotel was on a one-way street, so we returned and just drove down the street to the hotel. On arrival, we were met by the hotel staff, who unloaded our bags, and assured us that they would take the car and deal with the appropriate paperwork to make sure that we were not fined.

It was about 5:30 pm when we checked in and headed to our room.

We decided on an early (especially by Spanish standards!) dinner in our room, which was very nice.

After dinner, we went outside for a walk. The beautiful Palacio Vallier Hotel is perfectly positioned, right on the Plaza de la Virgen in the old town, so we started by walking across the plaza, which is dominated by two churches, the Valencia Cathedral and the Basilica of Our Lady of the Forsaken.

First, we went into the Basilica of Our Lady of the Forsaken. The devotion to the Virgin of the Forsaken dates back to the early 15th century, when a story about a statue of the Virgin working miracles for the poor (“the forsaken”), took hold. The basilica was built between 1652 and 1667 on the site of the ancient Roman forum, making it the only church in Valencia’s old town that is not built on the foundations of an earlier temple or mosque. Whilst the exterior of the church is very understated, its interior is lavishly Baroque.

Next, we visited the Valencia Cathedral, a much grander building. The site on which the Valencia Cathedral sits has been a religious site for nearly two thousand years. It was originally a Roman temple, which was converted to a cathedral by the Visigoths (a branch of the Goths, a Germanic people who migrated into the western Roman Empire and played a major role in the history of Spain from the 5th to early 8th centuries), and was then transformed into a mosque during Moorish rule. Following the Christian Reconquista led by King James I in 1238, the mosque was demolished to build a new Christian temple. Construction of the new cathedral began in 1262 and continued over several centuries, resulting in a building that combines Romanesque, Valencian Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, and Neoclassical styles.

Off to one side inside the cathedral is the Chapel of the Holy Chalice. This chapel holds what is believed by some to be the actual Holy Grail, the cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper. Many of the hundreds of thousands of tourists who visit Valencia each year come to the city to see the cathedral and, in particular, the Holy Grail.

We left the cathedral just before 8:00 pm, and walked through some of the small streets in Valencia’s vibrant old town, which was alive with people out enjoying a beautiful warm Sunday night.

We got back to the hotel just before 9:00 pm, with the idea of having an early night before heading out tomorrow to explore more of Valencia.