Valencia & Palma de Mallorca
On our way back from Morocco we had a short stopover in Valencia before we flew across to Palma de Mallorca to enjoy the beach, chill, relax, read and do nothing for a few days! Or that’s what we’ve thought!
Although we only had a couple of days in Valencia we managed to wash all the clothes which was superb, see a few things, and experience a few “OMG” moments!
Valencia
The port city of Valencia lies on Spain’s southeastern coast, where the Turia River meets the Mediterranean Sea. It’s known for its City of Arts and Sciences, with futuristic structures including a planetarium, an oceanarium and an interactive museum. Valencia also has several beaches, including some within nearby Albufera Park, a wetlands reserve with a lake and walking trails.
Instead of joining the usual walking tours we opted for a bike tour! A great experience and something different. Valencia is a flat city and perfect for biking.
We walked to the bike shop and joined the English speaking group with a local tour guide who spoke good English with a strong Spanish accent, loads of fun!
We started the bike tour by visiting the Turia Gardens, one of the largest urban parks in Spain. It runs through the city along nine kilometres of green space stretching from Cabecera Park to the City of Arts and Sciences.
The Turia Gardens are the perfect place for runners, cyclists, families and nature enthusiasts. It follows the former riverbed and passes by the city's main museums and monuments on either bank. We got to see a lot by just biking through it.
The gardens are built on the former riverbed of the Turia, whose course was altered to prevent constant flooding in the city. After a devastating flood on 14 October 1957, the Turia's course was diverted south of the city, leaving a huge tract of land that crosses the city from West to East, bordering the historical centre. Several urban planners and landscapists designed different sections of the park, recreating the former river scenery.
I seriously think NZ ( and other countries) can learn from València, it was a clever and presumably expensive move that’s saved the city from ongoing flooding and created a true paradise for its citizens.
We saw a number of things along the way:
The City of Arts and Science
Work of the Valencian architect Santiago Calatrava. Several of its buildings have become icons in the city. It is a scientific and cultural leisure complex which we enjoyed looking from the outside only and more on this when I get to OMG moment!
The Cathedral, Miguelete and Holy Grail Did you know the Holy Chalice is kept in the Cathedral of Valencia? Our tour guide is sceptical but that’s apparently true, we saw it or we are led to believe what we saw is the Holly Chalice?! We will never know.
Did you know the Cathedral holds one of the most important pieces of art from the first Spanish Renaissance? And the Cathedral Museum is the home to pieces by Maella or Goya? This great architectural complex was built on an ancient Roman temple that was later a mosque, and then became the Cathedral of Valencia. It is a Gothic-style building, although it preserves many elements from different periods, from Romanesque to Baroque eras.
La Lonja (The Silk Exchange) Unesco World Heritage
The Lonja is an emblematic building of the city and one of the most famous civil gothic monuments in Europe. It was declared a National Historic and Artistic Monument in July 1931 and was made a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in December 1996. It was built in 1492 and was used as the main silk trading center with upper floors used as prison for those merchants who didn’t pay tax duties. One stop shop!
This is where my first OMG moment happened. After learning about its history we got told to go in to see its stunning interior. And here I am standing there and thinking for myself - I have already bought three silk scarfs on this trip, I really don’t need anymore, but how will I resist it when I walk into this massive silk market!
Ha! Guess what - it’s empty! It’s a great building and amazing architecture, but it’s no longer an active silk market!
At the end of the 13th century, as a result of the prosperity in Valencia at the time, the old Lonja became insufficient and it was decided to build a new Exchange. Phew! What a relief, my dilemmas got resolved😉
El Carmen neighborhood: a cocktail of history and leisure
We stayed in the old town in the district of El Carmen, the best known Valencia's neighbourhood. It takes its name from the church and convent of Carmen Calzado, and is rightly renowned as utopia for lovers of Mediterranean cuisine and leisure. We tried a number of local food pastries, had no time to try paella 🥘 and you’ll laugh why when I get to my second OMG moment!
This is an area with a thousand years of history and magnificent examples of medieval architecture, a rich artistic heritage.
We visited The Church of San Nicolas de Bari and San Pedro Martir, a must-see in Valencia! Its impressive mural paintings in the vault are regarded as Valencia's Sistine Chapel ever since they were restored. Amazing 🤩!
Another point of interest is the Central Market, a great temple for local products that features modernist decorations and is considered the great showcase for fresh food in Europe. Unfortunately it was closed on Sunday and we only saw it from the outside.
El Carmen is also home to the only two access gates to the medieval city that are still standing: Serranos and Quart. They used to close when the bells announced night fall. And anyone who lost track of time had no choice but to sleep "under the Valencia moon". We managed to visit both and climbed the Quart Torre for spectacular views!
We saw a lot in only a couple of days!
Well, that’s when the next OMG moment happened. After booking the tickets for the famous BioPark I went on to check our flights to Palma to figure out if we could visit the City of Art and Science the next morning before our afternoon flight. OMG!!!
We were leaving today and not tomorrow!!!
After triple checking everything we quickly packed up, ordered a taxi, checked out and rushed to the airport!
Can you believe it?!
We wasted one night stay in Valencia, the BioPark entry tickets money was kindly refunded although it was clearly our own stuff up!
Grrrrr was I angry with myself?! Yep, big time! As Nebojsa says, mistakes happen and when you think about the trip planning happening at the same time we were dealing with our own house flood damage, tradies, insurance etc, we did pretty well!
That’s what a positive self talk does, looks for a silver lining and now we have an extra day in Palma de Mallorca!
And when I think more about it, it was definitely less painful wasting one night stay in Valencia then missing the flights to Palma, not picking up a rent a car in time etc.… you can see there was damage either way, luckily my curiosity to see more things saved us at the end!
We would love to come back to Valencia as there is a lot more to do and see, perhaps we could combine it with our return to Seville and we add Madrid into a mix!
Dreaming is for free, we arrived to Palma on time and had fabulous time.
Valencia Photo album
Palma de Mallorca
Palma, also known as Palma de Mallorca is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands in Spain. It is situated on the south coast of Mallorca on the Bay of Palma.
As of 2022, Palma Airport, serves over 28 million passengers per year. I have been to many airports in my life but I have never seen as busy airport as Palma at 6.30 am!
Where do I start?
A magical island, a shopping paradise, a place for party and dance, with hundreds pristine beaches, luxury hotels, yachts and cars, amazing markets I loved, a busy busy place where €50 lasts a very short distance 😂.
After weeks of nomad lifestyle waking up in a different location pretty much each morning we settled for six nights in Finca Sa Canova, a true paradise, Google it and go there if you ever have an opportunity!
https://fincasacanovaagroturismo.negocio.site/?utm_source=gmb&utm_medium=referral
Built in 1600 hundreds, it’s kept its authentic charm and it’s been carefully renovated by its current American owners who bought it in 2021 and call it their home.
We knew Palma city would be overcrowded and we deliberately wanted to stay inland and close to different beaches, let’s say we positioned ourselves strategically!
I have to say the holiday island of Mallorca is blessed by nature, offering a variety of beach types, from rugged, hard-to-reach coves and secluded calas to long, white sandy stretches of coastline with crystal clear turquoise sea, and facilities onsite.
This time we didn’t want to do any more history and walking, we decided to enjoy the lazy beach life, 🏖️, although we still saw the massive Santa María cathedral, a Gothic landmark from the 13th century, the adjacent Almudaina a Moorish-style Arab fortress converted to a royal residence, and on west in distance a hilltop Bellver Castle, a medieval fortress with a distinctive circular shape.
So, there are “only” 262 beaches in Mallorca, and it took me forever to get to the top 10 we wanted to visit. After a bit of effort, I found a website with beaches categorised based on what you are after, and by the geographical region! Perfect!
Since it’s August, and it is overcrowded everywhere we opted for unspoiled and remote beaches where you need to drive to and then walk to. Yay, it was a perfect choice, and even on these beaches we saw a mini fight each day when people rush to conquer a piece of sand. Mama Mia! People are so laud, and when they want their sun they’ll make you put down your sun umbrella if the shade is falling onto their towel ☀️Crazy stuff!
We visited a number of different beaches and will let you choose your favourite 😍!
Ses Salines - Colònia de Saint Jordi
Es Carbo Beach
Calo des Moros
Cala s’Almunia
Cala Llombards
Calvià - Sol Del Mallorca
Cala Santanyí, a long beach day finished with a cattle fish black paella 🥘 yummy!
Cala Figuera - a dinner date we will remember forever! Let’s say we celebrated 35th wedding anniversary a few months earlier 😍
I asked Nebojsa to rate Palma’s beaches and he gave it a score of 8, out of 10!
Too crowded, water is pristine from a distance but when you jump in you first swim through a few bottle caps, pieces of rubbish before you get out into a clear water. Such shame!
If we want to compare sandy beaches of Palma with Sardinia we visited last year, then Sardinia leads the way! The green, light and dark blue, turquoise crystal clear waters of Sardinia are 11/10!
If you are happy with the crowd, you want to shop till you drop and you don’t mind that the island simply cannot cope with the volume of tourists then you must visit Palma de Mallorca!
We also went to the famous Santanyi markets twice! I could walk through this market for hours, I loved it! There are numerous stalls from the local produce, fresh fruit and veggies to die for, freshly made juices, freshly made sandwiches with tomatoes, olive oil, Spanish cured ham and local cheese you can’t decide on, to jewellery and local artisan works of all sorts, to boutique shops selling clothing designed and made locally. A little shopping spree had to take place on the second visit, I couldn’t resist it and surprisingly we were within our daily budgets! Even better 😎!
And of course we went to Palma city for a wonder! I had no clue how huge this city is, it shocked me. It’s big, it’s beautiful but it’s struggling with rubbish, restaurants and shops are numerous, it is literally dining and shopping paradise! If you have thousands of euros to spend and go nuts, you would want to be in Palma! You’ll have a ball!
We are happy we visited this famous tourist destination, it was worth it! We have made so many beautiful memories again and are leaving it with our hearts and souls filled with joy and happiness.
So here we are, after just under 8 weeks of non stop travel and nomad life we are heading back to our place in beautiful Rovinj in Croatia, for a nice relaxing summer holiday.
We look forward to catching up with our friends and family and hosting our NZ visitors. Looking forward to seeing you guys soon!
We’ve had an absolute ball, it was hard on days, it was hot, it was demanding, it was outside the comfort zone, it was learning experience, it was heaps fun, and we met incredible and interesting people along a way! Amazing 🤩
The time has come to catch a breath or two, slow down a bit and enjoy our homeland beauty for a while!
Can we do it? Time will tell😎
Palma de Mallorca Photo album
