A day without driving

Now we had a day to explore Valencia on foot, ambling through the city is a much better way to travel here. We followed a walking tour route from the guide the hotel kindly provided where we found the Central market. It is such a shame places like this seem to have disappeared from the UK a huge building housing hundreds of stalls selling fruit, meats and fish. Very busy and lively.
Just the other side of the market was the old silk exchange building which contained some wonderful stone and wood work.

The next destination was to be the Valencia Aquarium in the new city of arts and sciences complex down to the waterfront. We took a scenic route along the diverted river bed which has been converted to a huge ribbon of green space though the city. This turned out to be a much longer walk than we had anticipated.

The aquarium was interesting although it did not quite live up to the expectations we had from their website. Many of the surface pools were in the process of being cleaned and no pelicans were visible (a common theme of pictures there). The dolphinareum was impressive and they put on a good show. The beluga whale enclosure was large but clearly restrictive for its two inhabitants. Other exhibit tanks were fairly run of the mill however they did have some Sun fish in with the sharks.

Long walk back to the hotel, i have the blisters to prove it.