Valencia: Christmas Markets All the Way

We arrived in Valencia in the evening, and as we learned through a series of fortunate events during our trip, our arch angels were with us the whole way.  I may not have mentioned this in the beginning, but we didn’t plan anything for our trip… no hotels, didn’t have a GPS, didn’t use the internet during our road trips… At this point we weren’t even equipped with a road atlas and yet we found our way wherever we needed. 

This was the first of many times where we sought out the bullring in a city, parked, and found a hotel close by.  I must say, it almost always puts you in a good spot of the city. 

Surprisingly, Valencia’s streets were packed, traffic was so congested you would’ve thought we were walking into a parade with how densely populated the sidewalks were.  As we learned during our trip, Three Kings Day, January 6^th , was coming up soon and this is celebrated with the same vigor that Christmas Day is celebrated in the States. 

Well maybe this is celebrated slightly differently. We went to a Christmas market in which about 10 people our age were playing chess in the middle of the park, and a fire juggler was putting on a show in front of the chess players.  I was loving this!  With the smell of chestnuts in the air and Christmas trinkets everywhere, my attention was being diverted every which way with no luck of keeping me focused on just one thing. 

Valencia was a picturesque city as many Spanish cities are, but its differentiating qualities included two things... 1) a HUGE statue of Gulliver the Giant laying on his side with ropes, paths, and tunnels molded into his body.  It was an imaginative playground which I took full advantage of!  This type of playground would never fly in the US though.  I was running on a platform about 3 feet wide and about 12 feet off the ground with no handrails, absolutely nothing to keep me from falling.  So I treaded carefully as I scaled the legs and arms of Gulliver the Giant.

After conquering the Giant, Eric and I began to get quite chilly while walking in the park so we took an impromptu run along the path which was situated along the riverbed of a river that had been diverted around the city after a major flood.  We came to find another Christmas market, a Kinder-sponsored ice skating rink, and a series of three buildings that resembled eyes and fish.

These buildings were designed by Santiago Calatrava and Félix Candela and are known as the City of Arts and Sciences. Eric was in awe of them and the way their lights danced off the reflection pool. Apparently he had studied these buildings in his Architecture class about 9 years ago, and to see it in person was breath taking. 

We ventured through the maze of paths and the Christmas market, had a cup of Moroccan tea and found an outdoor museum of the European Space Agency, highlighting all of the accomplishments of the ESA since its founding.  This was incredible, especially considering I'd only been exposed to NASA endeavors of the US and heard a smidgeon about the Russian space missions here and there.  The ESA has done some incredible stuff!


We ended up spending two nights in Valencia.  This really helped us to learn more about the city, catch the match where Valencia beat Real Madrid (putting an end to their winning streak), and plan for our next expedition.  **We stayed at Hotel Zenith, right next to the train station and the bullring.  Highly recommended.  Clean, comfortable, kind personnel and easy access to the old city.